BR  121  . 

K58 

1913 

Kinsman, 

Frederick 

Joseph, 

1868-1944. 

Catholic 

and 

Protestant 

CATHOLIC  AND  PROTESTANT 


CATHOLIC 
AND    PROTESTANT 


BY 
FREDERICK  JOSEPH  KINSMAN,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

BISHOP    OF    DELAWARE 


LONGMANS,    GREEN,    AND    CO. 

FOURTH  AVENUE  &  30TH  STREET,  NEW  YORK 

LONDON,  BOMBAY,  AND  CALCUTTA 

1913 


COPYRIGHT,    I913,  BY 
LONGMANS,   GREEN,    AND  CO 


PUBLISHED,    SEPTEMBER,    I913 


THE«PLIMPTON'PRESS 
NORWOOD-MASS-U-S-A 


TO 

WILLIAM  THOMAS   MANNING 


PREFACE 

The  papers  contained  in  this  book  were  read  before 
a  Conference  for  Church  Workers  in  the  Cathedral  of 
St.  John  the  Divine,  New  York,  July  1-4,  1913.  They 
are  printed  at  the  request  of  those  who  heard  them  in 
the  form  in  which  they  were  delivered  in  spite  of  bearing 
marks  of  haste  and  the  pressure  under  which  they  were 
written.  The  short  papers  given  in  the  Appendix  were 
written  for  the  Trinity  Parish  Record,  New  York,  and 
are  reprinted  by  permission  of  the  Editor. 

The  author  is  under  obligations  to  the  Reverend 
William  T.  Manning,  D.D.,  Rector  of  Trinity  Parish, 
New  York,  and  to  Mrs.  Marie  E.  J.  Hobart  for  help- 
ful criticisms,  and  to  the  Reverend  William  Christy 
Patterson,  to  Deaconess  Knapp,  and  to  his  sister,  for 
assistance  in  preparing  manuscript  for  the  press. 

FREDERICK  JOSEPH  KINSMAN 
BISHOP  OF  DELAWARE 

Birchmebe,   Transfiguration,  1913. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I    The  Sacramental  Principle     3 

II     Catholic  and  Protestant     29 

III    Sacramental  Character 62 

IV    The  Ideals  of  American  Christianity 73 

APPENDIX 

The  Church,  One,  Holy,  Catholic  and  Apostolic  .  .  99 


CATHOLIC  AND  PROTESTANT 


THE  SACRAMENTAL  PRINCIPLE 

-» 
The  sacramental  principle  means  the  expression 
of  the  spiritual  through  the  material,  the  connection 
and  interaction  of  the  human  and  the  Divine.  It  is 
based  on  the  principle  of  creation  whereby  the  material 
world  became  the  expression  of  the  thought  of  God, 
and  whereby  in  particular  man  was  created  in  God's 
image.  By  its  origin  humanity  was  an  outward  and 
visible  sign  of  inward  and  spiritual  life  pertaining  to 
the  Godhead.  In  line  with  this  law  or  principle  of 
creation,  and  as  ultimate  development  of  this  law,  was 
the  great  sacrament  of  all,  the  Incarnation  of  the  Son 
of  God.  When  in  the  man  Jesus  the  Word  of  God 
was  made  flesh  and  dwelt  among  us,  the  innermost 
spiritual  became  intelligible  by  human  expression,  and 
the  eternal  was  translated  into  comprehensible  terms 
of  the  life  of  time.  In  our  Lord  dwelt  "the  fulness 
of  the  Godhead  in  bodily  form,"  so  that  He  was  "the 
effulgence  of  the  Divine  glory,  the  express  image  of  the 
Person"  of  God  the  Father.  "He  that  hath  seen  Me 
hath  seen  the  Father."  He  was  truly  and  perfectly 
Divine;  and  at  the  same  time  He  was  truly  and  per- 
fectly human.  There  were  always  these  two  sides  of 
the  truth  about  Him;  and  neglect  of  either  of  them 
not  only  marred  the  symmetry  of  truth,  but  also  had 
disastrous    practical  consequences.      This   is   the  les- 


4  THE  SACRAMENTAL  PRINCIPLE 

son  of  warning  given  by  the  history  of  the  Church's 
struggles  with  heresy. 

Men  often  wilfully  isolate  and  emphasize  one  side 
of  a  double  truth,  because  for  various  reasons  they 
are  determined  to  see  one  side  only;  and  by  so  doing 
they  miss  the  meaning,  and  fail  to  realize  the  full 
consequences,  of  the  truth  with  which  they  are  con- 
cerned. In  these  days  we  do  not  like  to  talk  about 
orthodoxy  and  heresy;  or  if  we  do,  we  are  apt  to  assume 
that  orthodoxy  is  only  another  name  for  the  bigotry 
of  ignorance,  and  that  heresy  is  synonymous  with 
fearless  devotion  to  truth.  We  ought,  however,  to 
look  at  the  right  meaning  of  the  words,  and  behind 
the  words  to  the  things  they  represent,  and  to  recog- 
nize that  the  things  they  represent  have  vital  and 
eternal  issues.  "Orthodoxy"  means  right  thinking; 
and  "heresy"  is  wilfulness.  Right  thinking  is  neces- 
sary for  any  right  action.  In  the  pursuit  of  every 
science  there  is  a  right  thinking,  the  result  of  the  spirit 
of  obedience,  necessary  for  success,  and  a  wilfulness 
which  above  all  things  loves  its  own  way  and  shuts 
its  eyes  to  truth  it  does  not  happen  to  fancy,  which 
spells  failure.  The  two  things  may,  or  may  not,  be 
given  the  old-fashioned  names  "orthodoxy"  and 
"heresy";  but  if  not,  they  must  be  given  others  of 
identical  significance.  The  difference  between  them 
is  not  so  much  intellectual  as  moral,  not  so  much  in 
degree  of  apprehension  as  in  quality  of  disposition,  not 
relating  so  much  to  actual  grasp  of  truth  as  to  attitude 
toward  truth.  The  heretical  temper  may  show  itself 
in  defence  of  the  articles  of  the  Creed;  and  the  spirit 
of  orthodoxy  may  coexist  with  ignorance.     All  depends 


THE  SACRAMENTAL  PRINCIPLE  5 

on  line  of  development,  not  on  degree  of  progress. 
The  one  is  self -centered,  the  other  God-centered:  the 
one  seeks  to  express  and  vindicate  its  own  views,  the 
other,  only  to  submit  itself  to  the  authority  of  our 
Lord.  The  one  declares  defiantly,  "We  are  they  that 
ought ,to  speak;  who  is  lord  over  us?"  the  other  says 
simply,  "Lord,  to  whom  shall  we  go?  Thou  hast  the 
words  of  eternal  life."  In  every  pursuit  of  truth  these 
two  tempers  show  themselves;  and  it  is  only  the 
temper  which  seeks  to  control  Nature  by  obeying 
Nature,  which  conforms  to  law  instead  of  defying 
it,  which  looks  up  to  God  for  guidance,  that  can 
learn  the  secrets  of  growth  and  progress.  "In  Thy 
light  shall  we  see  light." 

The  history  of  the  Church  affords  many  examples 
of  heretical  tendencies  in  ultra-orthodox  circles.  Most 
famous  heretics  were  not  assailants  of  Christian  truth 
as  a  whole,  men  who  had  assumed  an  utterly  un- 
christian, standpoint,  but  zealous  Christians  whose 
orthodoxy  was  narrow  and  one-sided,  who  out  of 
devotion  to  one  truth,  or  to  one  side  of  truth,  reso- 
lutely refused  to  look  at  any  other.  The  difference 
between  orthodoxy  and  heresy  is  often  chiefly  that 
between  patience  and  impatience,  between  accept- 
ance of  the  difficult  task  of  viewing  truth  as  a  whole 
and  of  recognizing  and  relating  its  contrasts,  and  the 
irritability  which  thinks  that  devotion  to  some  one 
truth  necessitates  denial  or  obscuration  of  every  other, 
which  exults  over  "things  more  plain  than  truth," 
refusing  to  see  that  life  is  made  up  of  "things  more 
true  than  plain." 

The  Christian  attitude  toward  our  Lord  recognizes 


6  THE  SACRAMENTAL  PRINCIPLE 

and  constantly  applies  the  sacramental  principle. 
Truth  as  it  comes  from  Him  has  always  something  of 
the  twofoldness  which  belongs  to  Himself.  It  is  truly 
human  and  truly  Divine;  and  its  parallel  principles  and 
problems  call  for  reverent  patience.  The  attitude  of 
mind  which  invariably  leads  to  error  and  inefficiency, 
pounces  on  a  pet  principle,  isolates  and  exaggerates  it, 
and  is  hysterically  blind  to  every  other.  There  is  no 
lie  like  a  half-truth;  no  heretic  so  much  of  a  nuisance 
as  a  petty-minded  fraction  of  orthodoxy.  Christian 
history  largely  consists  of  the  working  out  on  a  world- 
wide scale  of  the  sacramental  principle:  and  many 
errors  and  evils  are  illustrations  of  grasp  of  only  one 
side  of  this.  At  the  risk  of  being  tedious,  let  me  call 
attention  to  some  of  the  more  familiar  examples. 

1.  Most  obviously  is  this  true  in  Christology.  Our 
Lord  is  true  God  and  true  Man.  Over  and  over  again 
defenders  of  His  Godhead  minimized  and  denied  His 
humanity;  and  defenders  of  His  complete  humanity 
have  ignored  and  explained  away  His  Godhead.  In 
every  case  speculative  errors  have  resulted  in  loss  of 
grip  of  the  practical  meaning  of  the  faith.  There 
have  been  flagrantly  naughty  heretics  and  super- 
latively pious  heretics;  but  both  alike  have  dismem- 
bered the  truth  and  failed  to  realize  the  fulness  of 
life  in  the  faith. 

Some  Christological  heresies  have  denied  the  Divine 
in  Christ.  Arius,  confident  in  his  logic  and  common- 
sense,  convinced  of  the  truth  of  our  Lord's  oneness 
with  creation,  could  not  be  made  to  admit  that  He  was 
fully  and  eternally  God.  He  was  not  ready  to  learn 
from  our  Lord  or  from  Scripture,  but,  vehement  to 


THE  SACRAMENTAL  PRINCIPLE  7 

establish  and  impose  his  own  theories,  so  overpressed 
a  metaphor  as  to  deny  the  truth  behind  it.  In  his 
wilful  defiance  of  authority  and  resolute  maintenance 
of  his  own  views,  he  is  the  classic  example  of  the  hereti- 
cal temper.  Nestorius  likewise,  keen  to  defend  the 
reality  of  our  Lord's  human  example,  the  complete- 
ness of  His  human  experience,  but  stupidly  impatient 
at  efforts  to  relate  these  truths  to  others  equally  im- 
portant, could  not  be  led  to  regard  Him  as  more  than 
most  highly  inspired  of  prophets,  and  would  never 
admit  that  the  new-born  son  of  Mary  could  be  incar- 
nate God.  He  had  hold  of  important  truth;  but  he 
let  even  more  important  slip  from  his  grasp. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  were  those  who  denied  our 
Lord's  humanity.  Apollinaris,  special  champion  of 
the  Divinity  against  Arius,  refused  to  admit  in  Him 
a  truly  human  will  or  rational  soul.  The  Apollinarian 
Christ  lacked  the  crowning  characteristic  of  humanity. 
He  was  wholly  God,  but  only  partly  Man.  The 
motive  of  this  teaching  was  reverence,  since  the  denial 
of  will  was  intended  to  protect  our  Lord's  sinlessness; 
but  it  mutilated  truth  to  avoid  difficulty.  From  the 
same  motive  Eutyches  went  to  even  greater  lengths, 
denying  the  existence  in  our  Lord  of  anything  human 
at  all.  "The  humanity,"  he  said,  "was  lost  in  the 
Divinity  as  a  drop  of  vinegar  is  swallowed  in  the 
ocean."  The  Eutychian  Christ  was  merely  God  in 
masquerade.  That  was  a  comparatively  simple  theory, 
free  from  certain  causes  of  perplexity;  but  it  did  not 
conform  to  the  facts  of  the  Gospels,  nor  to  the  interpre- 
tation of  them  given  in  the  Epistles. 

These  men  represented  great  schools  of  thought  in 


8  THE  SACRAMENTAL  PRINCIPLE 

the  Christian  Church,  or  rather  the  tendencies  of  these 
schools  developing  without  check  and  control.  In 
the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  the  chief  theological 
centres  were  Alexandria  and  Antioch.  Alexandria, 
seat  of  the  famous  Catechetical  School,  the  home  of 
mystical  theology,  the  see  in  which  Arianism  had 
been  fought  most  fiercely,  which  had  given  to  the 
Church  Athanasius  and  Cyril,  was  by  temper  and 
tradition  the  strenuous  defender  of  the  Divine  in 
Christ.  Antioch,  city  of  the  Christian  name,  a  centre 
for  practical  theology,  based  on  a  sound  and  critical 
study  of  Scripture,  numbering  among  its  sons  scholars 
and  saints  of  whom  Chrysostom  is  best  known,  was 
traditional  defender  of  His  complete  humanity.  But 
in  both  schools  were  those  who  could  not  preserve 
the  balance  of  faith.  Arius  and  Nestorius  had  many 
followers  in  Antioch;  the  Monophysites  flourished 
in  Egypt.  Both  schools  and  many  great  teachers 
needed  the  discipline  and  deliberate  instruction  of  the 
Church  as  a  whole,  which  was  given  in  the  Christo- 
logical  teaching  of  the  Creeds  and  the  Definition  of 
Chalcedon. 

"He  is  complete  in  His  own  nature  and  complete 
in  ours,"  enunciated  Leo:  and  this  thesis  the  Chalce- 
donian  fathers  elaborated  with  majestic,  evenly  bal- 
anced harmony.  "Following  therefore  the  holy  Fathers, 
we  confess  one  and  the  same  Son,  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
and  all  in  harmony  teach  the  same  thing;  that  He  is 
perfect  in  Godhead,  perfect  in  manhood,  truly  God 
and  truly  Man,  of  one  substance  with  the  Father  as 
touching  the  Godhead,  and  of  one  substance  with  us  as 
touching  His  Manhood,  begotten  of  the  Father  before 


THE  SACRAMENTAL  PRINCIPLE  9 

all  worlds  as  touching  the  Godhead,  in  these  last  days, 
the  same  born  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  the  God-bearer, 
as  touching  His  Manhood,  one  and  the  same  Christ, 
Son,  Lord,  the  Only -begotten,  recognized  in  two  natures 
without  confusion,  change,  division  or  separation." 
The  chief  thing  to  be  noticed  in  this  classic  definition 
of  the  Christian  faith  concerning  the  Person  of  Christ 
is  its  parallelism,  the  equal  assertion  of  both  sides  of 
the  complex  truth,  of  the  human  and  of  the  Divine. 
No  effort  is  made  to  relate  or  reconcile  them.  There 
is  no  hint  at  the  solution  of  difficulties  suggested  by 
the  coexistence  of  the  two :  but,  following  the  Fathers, 
the  Scriptures,  the  words  of  our  Lord  Himself,  the  two 
sides  of  the  truth  are  accepted  and  set  down  side  by 
side.  Witness  is  given  to  the  whole  truth,  even  if 
there  be  suggestion  of  insoluble  puzzles.  The  chief 
thing  which  the  council  sought  to  do  was  to  bear  wit- 
ness, not  to  explain.  The  Church  discharged  its  duty 
by  being  simply  honest  rather  than  profoundly  philo- 
sophical. In  the  controversies  of  the  conciliar  period, 
it  was  straightforward  loyalty,  rather  than  intellec- 
tual subtlety,  which  reached  a  solution  accepted  by 
the  conscience  of  the  Church  as  bearing  true  witness 
to  the  faith.  The  sum  and  substance  of  the  Church's 
teaching  about  Christ  lies  in  its  insistence  that  His 
Person  is  sacramental.  His  humanity  which  all  men 
can  touch  and  understand  is  the  revelation  and  media- 
tion of  the  Nature  and  Being  of  God.  "He  was  made 
human,  that  we  might  be  made  Divine." 

It  is  important  to  note  that  the  dissections  of  truth, 
branded  as  heresies  by  the  General  Councils,  repre- 
sented indifference  not  merely  to  definitions  of  specula- 


10  THE  SACRAMENTAL  PRINCIPLE 

tive  theologians,  but  to  the  teaching  of  Holy  Scripture. 
Moreover,  the  logical  consequences  were  denials  of 
the  practical  advantages  which  Christianity  claims  to 
give:  If  God  became  man,  there  has  been  in  the  life 
of  that  man  Who  was  God  Incarnate,  a  revelation  of 
God;  and  further,  there  has  been  through  God's 
undergoing  human  experience  proof  of  His  perfect 
sympathy  with  men,  in  both  ways  demonstration  of 
the  completeness  of  God's  love.  If  the  Incarnation 
be  a  fact,  God  has  spoken  to  man  and  has  shared  his 
life,  and  also  has  taught  in  a  way  that  cannot  be 
misunderstood,  that  men  may  speak  to  Him  and 
share  His  life.  The  practical  consequences  may  be 
summarized  in  the  two  words  revelation  and  sym- 
pathy. 

If  the  contention  of  Arius,  Nestorius,  and  other 
mere  humanitarians  be  true,  there  has  been  no  such 
revelation.  If  Jesus  was  merely  highest  of  creatures, 
greatest  of  prophets,  best  of  men,  though  his  life  may 
be  taken  by  some  as  exhibition  of  the  highest  planes 
of  humanity,  it  cannot  be  taken  as  revelation  of  God. 
If  he  were  not  really  Divine,  man  is  as  far  from  knowl- 
edge of  God  since  his  life  as  before.  Moreover,  consid- 
ering his  claims,  it  will  never  be  possible  for  many  to 
take  satisfaction  in  him  as  ideal  man.  His  words 
and  works  recorded  in  the  Gospels  imply  claim  to  be 
more  than  human.  Hence  those  who  shrink  from 
the  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation  must  always  assume 
either  that  he  misrepresented  his  true  nature,  or  that 
he  has  been  misrepresented  wholly  by  the  only  authori- 
tative accounts  we  have  of  him.  "Either  God,  or 
fraud;"    and  if  not  God,  then  no  revelation. 


THE    SACRAMENTAL    PRINCIPLE  11 

"Naught  but  this,  the  living  fulness 

Of  His  own  Immanuel  name, 
Links  His  human  truth  and  pureness 

With  the  splendors  of  His  claim: 
He  that  took  the  sovereign  station 

Where  no  angel  durst  come  nigh, 
Would  be  neither  saint  nor  prophet, 

Were  He  less  than  God  most  high." 

On  the  other  hand,  if  the  Divine  Son  of  God,  appear- 
ing on  earth,  were  not  really  human  but  only  pre- 
tended to  be,  there  would  have  been  an  elaborate 
delusion,  impossible  to  connect  with  the  thought  of 
God,  in  the  supposedly  unmeaning  detail  of  the  life 
of  over  thirty  years  in  Galilee  and  Judaea.  If  it 
were  not  possible  for  God  really  to  enter  into  hu- 
man experience,  then  the  life  of  the  apparition  called 
Jesus  exhibited  not  God's  nearness  and  sympathy, 
but  his  immeasurable  and  impassable  distance.  In 
addition  to  this,  there  is  the  consideration  empha- 
sized by  some  of  the  Fathers  that,  as  God  redeemed 
humanity  by  assuming  it,  any  part  not  assumed  was 
not  redeemed.  He  was  either  perfectly  man,  or  He 
was  a  deluding  phantom :  and  if  His  humanity  were 
not  real,  there  has  been  no  redemption. 

But  if  He  were,  as  the  Scriptures  teach,  the  Creeds 
assert,  and  the  Church  has  believed,  both  true  God 
and  true  Man,  then  we  can  see  that  He  is  the  true 
connecting-link  between  heaven  and  earth,  and  can 
understand  the  promise  made  to  Nathanael,  true  son 
of  Israel  and  typical  believer  in  Christ,  "Verily,  verily, 
I  say  unto  you,  Hereafter  ye  —  like  Israel  in  his  dream 
—  shall  see  the  heaven  opened,  and  the  angels  of  God 
ascending  and  descending  —  not  as  the  first  Israel  did 


12  THE    SACRAMENTAL    PRINCIPLE 

on  a  mere  ladder  stretched  between  heaven  and  earth 
but  —  on  the  Son  of  Man."  Our  Lord  Himself  is  the 
highest  expression  of  the  sacramental  principle. 

4.  Closely  parallel  with  the  history  of  the  Chris- 
tian doctrine  of  Christ  is  the  history  of  the  Christian 
doctrine  of  the  Eucharist.  In  every  sacrament  there 
are  the  two  things,  the  outward  and  visible  and  the 
inward  and  spiritual.  It  destroys  the  nature  of  a 
sacrament  to  ignore  or  deny  either  the  one  or  the 
other.  In  teaching  and  use  of  the  Eucharist  both 
errors  have  been  exhibited.  There  have  been  those 
who  utterly  repudiated  the  idea  of  anything  more 
than  the  outward  sign.  The  bread  and  wine  in  the 
Eucharist  merely  typify  food  of  the  spirit  given  in 
independence  of  them.  They  may  be  suggestive  signs; 
but  as  realities,  they  are  only  what  outwardly  and 
visibly  they  appear,  bread  and  wine  and  nothing  else. 
The  contrary  of  this  equally  denies  the  nature  of  a 
sacrament,  when,  out  of  regard  for  the  spiritual  reality, 
it  denies  the  permanence  of  what  is  outward  and  visible. 
It  is  unsacramental  to  say  "There  is  no  bread  and 
wine  left  in  the  consecrated  elements;  the  only  things 
present  are  the  Body  and  Blood  of  Christ."  Eucharis- 
tic  Nihilianism,  or,  to  use  the  more  usual  term,  Tran- 
substantiation,  born  of  the  same  impatient  reverence 
as  Eutychianism,  has  been  equally  disastrous  in  the 
Church.  In  both  cases  there  has  been  failure  to 
realize  the  truth  which  sacraments  are  intended  to 
teach. 

The  formal  statements  of  Eucharistic  doctrine  which 
correspond  to  the  teaching  of  Scripture,  like  the  for- 
mal statements  of  Christological  doctrine,  show  even 


THE    SACRAMENTAL    PRINCIPLE  13 

parallelism  of  the  double  truth.  Irenaeus,  for  example, 
well  represents  the  mind  of  the  early  Church:  "As 
bread  of  earth,  when  it  receives  the  invocation  of 
God  is  no  longer  common  bread,  but  Eucharist,  con- 
sisting of  two  things,  both  an  earthly  and  a  heavenly, 
so  also  our  bodies  partaking  of  the  Eucharist,  are  no 
longer  Corruptible,  but  have  the  hope  of  resurrection 
to  eternity."  The  same  teaching  is  pictorially  repre- 
sented in  the  frescoes  of  the  Roman  Catacombs.  The 
commonest  symbolic  representation  of  the  Eucharist 
shows  a  cross-marked  loaf  on  a  tripod,  elevated  above 
other  loaves  in  baskets  round  about,  but  with  the 
symbol  of  our  Lord,  the  Fish.  The  loaf  and  Fish  to- 
gether quaintly  symbolize  the  truth  concerning  the 
Holy  Sacrament.  Thus  the  art  of  the  early  Roman 
Church  bears  testimony  against  the  one-sided  pres- 
entations of  later  scholastic  theologians.  Strict  Tran- 
substantiation  would  exhibit  the  Fish  without  the 
loaf.  This  doctrine  does,  as  the  Article  states,  "de- 
stroy the  nature  of  a  sacrament,"  and  has  in  fact  been 
associated  with  disuse  of  Communion.1  It  represents 
an  effort  to  define  in  terms  of  mediaeval  metaphysics 
the  manner  of  the  Presence  in  the  Eucharist,  an 
attempt  never  made  by  the  theologians  of  the  Eastern 
Church,  who,  using  a  word  sometimes  translated 
"Transubstantiation,"  so  define  it  as  to  distinguish  it 
from   the   word   in   its   technical   Latin   sense.     This 

1  It  is  necessary  to  note,  however,  that  both  to  defenders  and 
deniers  Transubstantiation  often  means  not  this  technical  scholastic 
doctrine,  but  merely  affirmation  of  the  Real  Presence  of  our  Lord's 
Body  and  Blood  in  the  Holy  Sacrament,  and  also  that  well-recognized 
glosses  of  many  Roman  Catholic  scholars  protect  the  obscured  truth. 


14  THE    SACRAMENTAL    PRINCIPLE 

the  Russian  Catechism  defines  the  Communion  as  "a 
sacrament  in  which  the  believer  under  the  forms  of 
bread  and  wine  partakes  of  the  very  Body  and  Blood 
of  Christ  to  everlasting  life.''  "In  the  exposition  of 
the  faith  by  the  eastern  patriarchs,  it  is  said  that 
the  word  ^erovo-iWis  is  not  to  be  taken  to  define  the 
manner  in  which  the  bread  and  wine  are  changed  into 
the  Body  and  Blood  of  the  Lord;  for  this  none  can 
understand  but  God;  but  only  thus  much  is  signified, 
that  the  bread  truly,  really  and  substantially  become 
the  very  true  Body  of  the  Lord,  and  the  wine,  the 
very  Blood  of  the  Lord."  Then  St.  John  Damascene 
is  quoted  as  giving  a  typical  eastern  statement.  "It 
is  truly  that  Body  united  with  Godhead,  which  had  its 
origin  from  the  holy  Virgin;  not  as  though  the  Body 
which  ascended  came  down  from  heaven,  but  because 
the  bread  and  wine  themselves  are  changed  into  the 
Body  and  Blood  of  God.  But  if  thou  seekest  after 
the  manner  how  this  is,  let  it  suffice  thee  to  be  told, 
that  it  is  by  the  Holy  Ghost;  in  like  manner  as  by  the 
same  Holy  Ghost,  the  Lord  formed  flesh  to  Himself, 
and  in  Himself,  and  from  the  Mother  of  God:  nor 
know  I  aught  more  than  this,  that  the  Word  of  God  is 
true,  powerful  and  almighty,  but  its  manner  of  opera- 
tion unsearchable."  1 

In  all  ancient  theologians  are  to  be  found  similar 
statements  of  the  reality  of  the  spiritual  presence  with 
recognition  of  the  permanence  of  the  outward  sign. 
It  is  in  line  with  these  that  the  Anglican  Catechism 
teaches  that  there  are  two  parts  in  every  Sacrament, 

1  Russian  Catechism.  Cf.  Headlam:  Teaching  of  the  Russian 
Church,  pp.  8  f.  note. 


THE    SACRAMENTAL    PRINCIPLE  15 

and  that  in  the  Eucharist  the  bread  and  wine  are  a 
means  of  receiving  the  Body  and  Blood  of  Christ. 
Analogous  to  sacramental  presence  is  sacramental 
action.  This  is  indicated  in  the  Invocation  in  the 
Consecration  Prayer.  The  Holy  Spirit  is  invoked  to 
bless  and  sanctify  the  elements  that  they  may  become 
the  Body  and  Blood  of  Christ.  The  essential  action 
wis  that  of  God:  but  there  is  action  of  man  as  well. 
This  is  emphasized  in  the  words  "that  we  receiving 
them  may  be  partakers  of  the  Body  and  Blood  of 
Christ."  As  the  common  things  of  earth  are  neces- 
sary for  the  imparting  of  spiritual  realities;  so  in  the 
use  of  them  it  is  necessary  both  that  God  act  and 
that  we  act  too.  Both  theoretical  and  practical  doc- 
trines of  the  Eucharist  insist  on  the  twofold  nature  of 
Sacraments  and  the  clear  recognition  of  these. 

Throughout  the  history  of  the  undivided  Church 
the  most  characteristic  Christian  rite  was  the  celebra- 
tion of  the  Holy  Eucharist,  and  the  most  characteristic 
act  of  the  Christian  life  the  reception  of  it.  Chris- 
tians normally  gave  the  Eucharist  a  supreme  and 
central  place,  since  it  represented  not  only  obedience 
to  our  Lord's  injunction  on  the  eve  of  His  Passion,  but 
also  a  practical  application  of  the  Incarnation  prin- 
ciple, that  the  earthly,  visible,  and  human  may  have 
contact  with  the  heavenly,  eternal  and  Divine.  Em- 
phasis that  in  the  Eucharist  there  is  the  coming  together 
of  two  things  forces  home  the  truth  that  the  pre- 
dominant thought  and  paramount  duty  is  Communion. 
The  practical  consequence  of  denying  either  side  of 
the  sacramental  truth  has  been  neglect  of  this.  The 
Zwinglian,    insisting   that   in   the   Eucharist   there   is 


16  THE    SACRAMENTAL    PRINCIPLE 

nothing  but  a  material  sign  of  an  absent  reality,  that 
the  Sacraments  are  not  really  the  means  of  grace  but 
bare  signs  only,  laid  all  stress  on  the  faith  in  the  recip- 
ient and  made  all  virtue  attach  to  the  state  of  mind  of 
him  who  used  the  symbol.  Naturally  he  came  to  feel 
that  a  robust  faith  could  dispense  with  symbols;  and 
although  he  defended  the  use  of  them  as  harmless, 
or  even  in  a  mild  way  helpful,  he  came  practically  to 
feel  that,  though  conventional,  they  were  unneces- 
sary. The  result  on  the  whole  of  Swiss  influence  has 
been  to  disparage  Sacraments,  the  Eucharist  in  par- 
ticular. On  the  other  hand,  theologians  and  ecclesias- 
tics who  insisted  wholly  on  the  Divine  mystery,  and  to 
defend  this  taught  the  annihilation  of  the  outward 
sign,  also  fostered  neglect  of  Communion  and  a  tend- 
ency to  regard  the  Eucharist  as  a  charm.  It  was 
left  to  priests  to  offer  Mass  as  a  vicarious  sacrifice; 
and  there  was  a  general  abstaining  from  Communion 
except  at  the  comparatively  infrequent  times  at  which 
reception  was  imposed  under  penalties  for  neglect. 
Eucharistic  Nihilianism  has  tended  to  remove  the  Holy 
Sacrament  from  actual  use  precisely  as  its  Christolog- 
ical  counterpart  removed  thought  of  our  Lord  from 
human  life.  The  consequence  of  belief  in  all  heaven 
and  no  earth  has  been  very  similar  to  insistence  on  all 
earth  and  no  heaven.  The  Eucharist  is  the  meeting- 
point  of  the  material  and  the  spiritual;  and  its  true 
function  is  not  realized  if  emphasis  on  either  side  in- 
duces loss  of  appreciation  of  the  other.  From  the  prac- 
tical standpoint  in  the  Christian  life,  the  Eucharist  is 
supreme  and  central :  but  it  is  supreme  and  central  not 
as  bare  sign  nor  as  remote  mystery,  but  as  sacrament. 


THE    SACRAMENTAL    PRINCIPLE  17 

3.  Reference  to  the  use  of  Sacraments  leads  naturally 
to  consideration  of  the  twofold  elements  and  sides  in 
the  work  of  redemption.  For  the  salvation  of  the  indi- 
vidual soul  God  works;  and  man  must  work  too.  Men 
have  erred  by  total  reliance  on  the  human  effort,  and 
by  sole  insistence  on  the  Divine  power.  Against  both 
the  Church  has  taught  that  the  process  of  salvation  is 
I  sacramental,  a  meeting-point  for  God  and  man. 

At  many  times  and  in  many  forms  has  the  difficulty 
of  correlating  the  two  arisen;  and  it  appears  in  various 
guises  in  our  own  time.  But  all  essential  features  are 
to  be  seen  in  the  Pelagian  Controversy  of  the  fifth 
century.  Pelagius  was  a  typical  defender  of  the 
principles  involved  on  the  human  side,  the  freedom 
of  man's  will  and  the  essential  goodness  of  creation. 
Himself  a  man  of  singularly  pure  character,  he  felt 
bound  to  protest  against  the  moral  slackness  and 
flabbiness  of  many  who  persisted  in  sin,  throwing  all 
blame  on  the  fall  of  Adam,  and  trusting  to  the  Church 
to  do  for  them  what  they  would  not  try  to  do  for 
themselves.  He  insisted  on  the  possibility  of  living 
good  lives  and  on  the  necessity  of  moral  effort,  rightly 
insisting  on  the  potential  goodness  of  human  nature 
created  in  the  image  of  God.  But  he  ventured  to 
affirm,  "A  man  may  by  himself  be  sinless,  if  he  wishes 
it."  He  denied  that  there  was  in  man  inherent  tend- 
ency to  sin,  or  handicap  in  heredity,  that  man  needed 
any  grace  of  God  other  than  the  powers  given  him 
in  creation,  and  that  there  was  need  of  Sacraments 
as  means  of  grace.  All,  he  maintained,  that  was  nec- 
essary for  man's  salvation  was  that  he  should  use 
his  innate  powers.  He  regarded  each  man  as  an 
2 


18  THE    SACRAMENTAL    PRINCIPLE 

isolated  unit,  unrelated  to  history  and  independent 
of  society.  Like  many  another  amiable  theorist  he 
was  led  astray  by  a  one-sided  ideal  for  humanity 
which  had  little  to  do  with  men.  His  good  intentions 
were  unmistakable:  but  he  ignored  facts.  His  vision 
of  what  man  ought  to  be,  and  of  what  he  would  like  to 
think  the  world  to  be,  blinded  him  to  facts  of  what 
man  and  the  world  are.  He  laid  necessary  stress  on 
one  side  of  the  problem,  but  did  irreparable  harm  by 
not  seeing  that  there  was  another.  Actuated  by  an 
earnestness  sincerely  Christian,  he  evacuated  the  Chris- 
tian system  of  meaning;  and,  teaching  in  the  name 
of  Christ,  sought  to  separate  men  from  the  help 
that  Christ  gives. 

In  the  discussions  he  roused  he  had  two  chief  oppo- 
nents, St.  Jerome,  then  in  the  East,  and  St.  Augustine 
in  the  West.  Augustine  in  particular  became  the 
champion  of  God's  sovereignty  and  the  Church's  great 
Doctor  of  Grace.  The  chief  theme  of  much  of  his 
writing  was  that  in  each  act  and  stage  of  his  existence 
man  is  dependent  on  the  grace  of  God,  that  there  is 
necessity  for  Divine  action  and  initiative  in  the  proc- 
ess of  human  salvation.  He  could  not  forget  the 
depths  of  his  own  sin,  and  that  he  had  himself  been 
snatched  as  a  brand  from  the  burning.  In  his  writ- 
ings as  a  whole  it  is  possible  to  discover  that  he  does 
justice  to  both  elements  in  the  process  of  salvation, 
that  he  recognized  the  necessity  of  the  response  of 
human  faith  to  the  overtures  of  Divine  grace;  but  in 
some  of  his  treatises  he  loses  sense  of  proportion,  and 
so  magnifies  the  function  of  the  Divine  as  to  eliminate 
the   human.    The   extremes   of   Augustine   were   not 


THE    SACRAMENTAL    PRINCIPLE  19 

accepted  by  the  Church  any  more  than  the  extremes 
of  Pelagius.  The  Council  of  Orange  in  529,  represent- 
ing the  deliberate  mind  of  the  Church  on  these  matters, 
avoided  both  extremes,  asserting  the  complementary 
truths  without  undertaking  fully  to  explain  their 
meaning  or  their  consistency. 

In  modern  times,  discussions  concerning  God's 
predestination  and  man's  free  will  have  ensued  from 
the  teachings  of  the  Swiss  reformers.  Ulrich  Zwingli 
and  John  Calvin  made  more  absolute  statements  con- 
cerning the  Divine  sovereignty,  and  more  unflinchingly 
drew  the  inevitable  conclusions  of  their  own  logic,  than 
ever  Augustine  did.  The  foundation  of  their  theol- 
ogy was  Divine  Omnipotence,  their  central  thought 
always  that  of  the  Divine  Will.  To  protect  this  they 
did  not  hesitate  to  deny  any  real  freedom  of  man's 
will  nor  to  assert  that  God  was  the  Author  of  evil. 
The  following  are  characteristic  assertions  of  Zwingli: 
"It  is  God  Who  moves  the  robber  to  murder  one  who 
is  innocent  even  though  he  be  unprepared  to  die." 
"It  is  He  Who  made  Adam  disobedient  and  the  angel 
a  transgressor.  The  treachery  of  Judas  like  the  adul- 
tery of  David  is  as  much  God's  work  as  the  call  of 
St.  Paul."  "Judas  and  Cain  were  as  much  rejected  to 
eternal  misery  before  the  foundation  of  the  world  as 
the  Blessed  Virgin  and  the  crucified  thief  were  chosen 
to  blessedness."  Zwingli  probably  shuddered  at  some 
of  his  own  statements;  but  he  would  not  shrink  from 
any  conclusion  which  seemed  to  follow  from  the  prin- 
ciple which  was,  in  his  opinion,  the  basis  of  all  faith. 
Calvin  is  equally  explicit  in  his  Institutes,  though  the 
statements   seem  less  harsh  from    not   being   applied 


20  THE    SACRAMENTAL   PRINCIPLE 

to  concrete  cases.  "We  assert  that  those  whom  He 
gives  over  to  damnation  are  by  a  just  and  irrepre- 
hensible,  though  incomprehensible,  judgment  excluded 
from  all  access  to  eternal  life."  x  "Therefore  if  we 
cannot  give  a  reason  why  God  has  mercy  on  the 
elect  except  that  it  so  pleases  Him,  so  in  the  reproba- 
tion of  others  we  have  no  cause  but  God's  will." 2 
"All  the  sons  of  Adam  fall  by  the  will  of  God  into  their 
present  state  of  misery,  and,  as  for  the  reason  of  it, 
we  must  always  fall  back  on  the  mere  choice  of  the 
Divine  will,  the  reason  of  which  is  hidden  from  us."  3 
"I  grant  that  it  is  a  horrible  decree,  yet  no  one  can 
deny  that  God  foreknew  the  end  of  man  before  He 
formed  him,  and  foreknew  it  because  by  His  own 
decree  He  ordained  it."  4  Calvin  did  not  hesitate  to 
admit  that,  according  to  his  teaching,  God  chooses 
"capriciously,  arbitrarily,  and  irrationally."  As  has 
been  well  said,  "Calvinism  sacrifices  everything  to 
the  conception  of  omnipotence,  and  in  so  doing  makes 
God  immoral  and  man  non-moral."  5  This  theology 
has  provoked  violent  reaction  and  protest.  If  God 
were  as  Calvin  represented  Him,  many  men  have 
refused  to  believe  in  God.  The  declaration  of  John 
Stuart  Mill  is  classic,  "I  will  call  no  being  good  who 
is  not  what  I  mean  when  I  apply  that  epithet  to  my 
fellow-creatures:  and  if  such  a  being  can  sentence 
me  to  hell  for  not  so  calling  him,  to  hell  I  will  go." 

One  of  the  chief  consequences  of  this  distortion  of  the 
truth  of  God's  sovereignty  by  the  inflexibility  of  a  fero- 

1  Inst.  Ill:  cxxvi:  7.  2  Inst.  Ill:  cxxxii:  11. 

3  Inst.  Ill:  cxxxiii:  4.  4  Inst.  Ill:  cxxiii:  7. 

5  Moore:  History  of  the  Reformation,  501-518. 


THE    SACRAMENTAL    PRINCIPLE  21 

cious  logic,  this  flagrant  denial  of  patent  facts  in  human 
life,  has  been  violent  reaction  in  favor  of  what,  accord- 
ing to  Calvin,  was  a  damnable  and  damned  humanity. 
For  the  past  two  centuries  there  has  been  much  insist- 
ence on  the  essential  goodness  of  human  nature,  the 
actual  goodness,  disguised  it  may  be  but  unmistak- 
able, in  the  majority  of  men,  a  passionate  defense  of 
the  goodness  of  God  the  Creator,  and  many  efforts  to 
bring  into  prominence  the  obscured  truth  of  God's 
Fatherhood.  Much  of  the  influence  of  Unitarianism 
has  been  due  to  its  sympathetic  humanism,  as  con- 
trasted with  Calvinistic  denunciations.  Men  have 
turned  with  relief  from  such  statements  as  Calvin's 
that  "God's  image  in  man  is  wholly  defaced"  and 
"man  is  wholly  given  to  evil"  to  optimism  like 
Channing's,  "I  love  mankind  because  they  are  chil- 
dren of  God."  Channing  gained  a  hearing  by  preach- 
ing a  gospel  of  health  and  hope.  He  insisted  on  the 
dignity  of  human  nature,  on  the  germ  of  progress 
in  every  human  being,  and  on  the  unspeakable  value 
of  each  human  soul.  He  felt  that  vilification  of 
human  nature  was  "like  a  wrong  done  to  an  angel." 
Through  his  influence  and  that  of  men  like  him,  there 
has  developed  a  strong  humanitarianism,  which  in 
many  forms  has  tended  to  concentrate  attention  too 
exclusively  on  the  human  side  of  things.  Positivism, 
for  example,  knows  no  higher  object  of  worship  than 
collective  humanity.  "Man  must  be  his  own  Gospel," 
says  Frederic  Harrison,  "He  must  reveal  truth  to  him- 
self —  by  himself.  He  must  found  or  frame  his  own 
religion  —  or  must  have  none."  The  Positivist  holds 
that  man's  supreme  function  is  self-contemplation,  so 


22  THE    SACRAMENTAL    PRINCIPLE 

that  what  is  called  prayer,  like  the  Pharisee's  in  the 
parable,  takes  the  form  of  complacency  at  one's  own 
superiority  to  the  rest  of  mankind.  As  Emerson  once 
said  to  Whittier,  "There  lives  an  old  Calvinist  in  that 
house  who  says  that  she  prays  for  me  every  day.  I 
am  glad  she  does.  I  pray  for  myself."  "Does  thee?" 
said  Whittier.  "What  dost  thee  pray  for,  friend 
Emerson?"  "Well,"  replied  Emerson,  "when  I  first 
open  my  eyes  upon  the  morning  meadows  and  look 
out  upon  the  beautiful  world,  I  thank  God  that  I 
am  alive,  and  that  I  live  so  near  Boston."  There 
is  something  at  first  sight  attractive,  but  on  second 
thought  singularly  unsatisfactory,  about  such  self- 
satisfied,  self-poised  lives. 

It  is  doubtful  whether  a  tendency  to  identify  the 
ideal  with  the  actual  ought  to  be  called  optimism. 
It  is,  at  any  rate,  an  optimism  which  is  impatient 
and  shallow  in  that  it  refuses  to  take  account  of  all 
the  facts.  The  truest  criticism  of  enthusiasts  for 
humanity  as  it  is,  is  that  they  lower  its  proper  stand- 
ard. Such  enthusiasm  for  humanity  is  in  reality 
despair  for  humanity.  "The  saddest  view  of  human 
nature  is  that  it  has  not  fallen."  Enthusiasm  for 
what  humanity  is  not,  but  what  man  knows  it  ought 
to  be,  is  truer  and  more  inspiring  than  blind  devotion 
to  things  as  they  are.  There  can  be  no  satisfactory 
religion  which  does  not  recognize  the  essential  and 
potential  goodness  of  humanity:  but  neither  can  any 
religion  be  satisfactory  which  does  not  recognize  its 
actual  degradation.  Sin  is  a  fact.  "I  see  things  that 
are  better  and  approve  of  them;  yet  I  turn  from  them 
for  the  worse,"  may  be  said  at  times  by  every  man. 


THE    SACRAMENTAL    PRINCIPLE  23 

Religion  must  never  ignore  either  the  ideal  or  the 
actual.  It  must  combine  the  hope  of  the  optimist 
with  the  clear  vision  of  the  pessimist.  As  Pascal 
observed,  "It  is  dangerous  to  make  man  consider  over- 
much that  he  is  on  equality  with  beasts  without  point- 
ing out  also  his  greatness.  It  is  also  dangerous  to 
make  him  consider  overmuch  his  greatness  without 
noting  his  degradation.  It  is  still  more  dangerous  to 
let  him  ignore  either  the  one  or  the  other.  It  is  most 
to  his  advantage  to  call  attention  to  both." 

There  have  been  curious  illustrations  of  combina- 
tion of  devotion  to  the  Divine  in  theory  with  exclusive 
care  for  the  human  in  practice,  of  soaring  theology 
with  grovelling  selfishness.  Some  of  the  most  rigorous 
predestinarians  among  Calvinists  have  been  Epicureans 
in  practice.  They  have  exalted  the  Divine  Will  in 
theology;  but  they  have  followed  their  own  wills  in 
every-day  life.  They  have  assumed  the  identity  of 
God's  Will  with  their  own  wilfulness;  and,  as  in  the 
parallel  case  of  the  Mohammedans,  belief  in  predes- 
tination, which  left  a  man  hopeless  and  helpless  in 
abstract  statement,  made  him  irresistibly  effective  on 
the  battle-field  and  in  the  scramble  for  this  world's 
goods.  It  has  been  not  uncommon  for  thoroughgoing 
predestinarians  to  assume  as  the  ruling  principle  of 
life,  "God  from  all  eternity  by  His  irresistible  Will 
has  decreed  that  I  do  exactly  as  I  please,"  a  con- 
viction which  has  given  both  force  and  ferocity  of 
character.  When  analyzed  it  may  sometimes  be  seen 
that  theoretical  fear  of  God  has  not  meant  real  appre- 
hension of  man's  dependence  on  His  Maker  and 
Saviour. 


24  THE    SACRAMENTAL    PRINCIPLE 

4.  Similar  to  the  principles  of  the  doctrine  of  Grace 
is  the  Church's  teaching  concerning  Inspiration. 
Inspiration  means  that  God  uses  man  and  gives  him 
power  to  carry  out  His  purposes.  The  process  involves 
neither  supersession  of  the  human  by  the  Divine  nor 
elimination  of  the  Divine  in  the  human.  The  name 
inspiration  stands  for  every  aspect  and  consequence 
of  the  fact  that  a  man  may  be  endued  with  power 
from  on  high;  but  it  is  usually  identified  with  the 
Spirit's  use  of  the  Evangelists  for  the  perpetuation  of 
Divine  truth.  The  books  of  Scripture  show  how 
entirely  everything  that  is  human  may  be  taken  and 
utilized  for  Divine  purposes,  and  that  in  the  results  of 
human  activities  may  be  discovered  something  more 
than  human  which,  when  analyzed,  must  be  ascribed 
to  God.  The  books  of  the  Bible  were  written  by  men, 
and  yet  are  not  as  other  books.  There  is  something 
mingled  with  the  human  element  in  them  which 
differentiates  them  from  other  literature,  even  the 
noblest.  The  only  satisfactory  explanation  of  them  is 
that  "prophecy  came  not  in  old  time  by  the  will  of 
man;  but  holy  men  of  God  spake  as  they  were  moved 
by  the  Holy  Ghost." 

Two  sorts  of  theories  of  inspiration  do  violence  to 
the  facts:  first,  those  which  taking  the  Scriptures  as 
human  productions  refuse  to  see  in  them  anything 
more  than  ordinary  compositions  of  man,  and  in  deal- 
ing with  them  drag  them  to  a  level  which  eliminates 
all  that  is  most  distinctive;  and  second,  those  which 
assume  that  the  Divine  action  involves  use  of  men  as 
impersonal  machines,  and  in  consequence  assert  that 
every  word,  syllable,  Hebrew  point  of  the  Massoretic 


THE    SACRAMENTAL    PRINCIPLE  25 

text,  and  variant  reading  of  authorized  translations, 
must  be  taken  as  infallible  and  indelible  handwriting 
of  God.  Inspiration  is  a  sacramental  process,  in  which 
traces  of  both  Divine  and  human  action  may  be  seen. 
It  is  an  inspiration  of  men,  not  of  things.  In  thinking 
of  Scripture  the  inspired  book  is  only  understood  as 
we  think  of  the  inspired  man  behind  the  inspired  book, 
and  of  the  inspiring  Holy  Spirit  behind  the  man. 
The  Church's  statements  concerning  inspiration  of 
Scripture  do  not  imply  either  that  it  is  a  case  of  all 
man  and  no  God,  or  of  all  God  and  no  man.  They 
teach  that  the  Spirit  of  God  uses  the  powers  of  obedient 
man,  and  that  in  the  process  of  evangelistic  work  God 
and  man  work  together. 

It  may  seem  that  the  matters  we  have  been  con- 
sidering have  only  an  antiquarian  or  academic  interest. 
On  the  contrary  they  have  present  and  permanent 
importance  as  illustrations  of  the  law  which  relates 
the  life  of  man  to  the  life  of  God.  As  these  two 
things  have  been  considered,  there  have  often  been 
oscillations  from  exclusive  consideration  of  the  one 
to  exclusive  consideration  of  the  other:  and  the  Chris- 
tian Church  has  always  striven  to  preserve  a  stable 
equilibrium  which  gives  due  regard  to  both.  The 
experience  of  the  past  has  present  value  in  its  exhibi- 
tions of  the  laws  of  truth  which  must  ever  condition 
our  own  tasks. 

Infinite  hope,  infinite  humility  —  these  are  the 
proper  ingredients  of  man's  normal  consciousness. 
Spiritual  life,  like  physical,  depends  upon  the  coalition 
of  two  elements,  a  masculine  and  a  feminine,  generative 


26  THE    SACRAMENTAL    PRINCIPLE 

grace  acting  upon  receptive  faith.  For  growth  there 
must  be  coordination  of  wills,  man's  with  God's.  Indi- 
vidual salvation  depends  upon  individual  appropria- 
tion of  the  effects  of  the  Atonement,  which  must  be 
conceived  not  only  as  an  act  of  God  for  man  which 
he  could  not  perform  for  himself,  but  also  an  exhibition 
on  the  part  of  pattern  man  of  obedience  unto  death, 
a  symbolical  representation  of  the  work  of  redemption 
in  which  man  himself  plays  a  part.  Personal  relation 
always  involves  interaction  of  personal  force;  and  in 
the  relation  between  the  Divine  and  human  persons 
there  is  a  reciprocal  action  which  alone  gives  reality 
to  spiritual  experience.  The  doctrine  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  God  working  directly  upon  man  and  in  man  by 
rousing  man's  own  spirit  into  cooperation,  correlates 
the  functions  of  man  and  God  in  the  redemptive 
process. 

Humanity  and  the  world  are  sacramental.  Each 
represents  electric  forces  playing  between  two  poles. 
There  is  no  clue  to  the  meaning  of  either  except  through 
recognition  that  that  which  comes  from  God,  though 
distinct  from  God,  must  always  be  related  to  Him; 
and  moreover,  that  that  nature  which  has  been  created 
in  God's  image  with  freedom  of  will  and  capacity  for 
personal  life,  must  always  be  taken  into  account  in 
dealing  with  practical  affairs.  The  tragedies  of  his- 
tory and  the  annoyances  of  every-day  life  alike  come 
from  failure  to  apprehend  the  principle  of  the  Word 
made  flesh.  It  is  by  standing  squarely  on  the  basis 
of  the  truth  revealed  in  Him,  that  we  are  in  the  best 
way  of  solving  the  puzzles  and  problems  which  perplex 
our  daily  paths. 


THE    SACRAMENTAL    PRINCIPLE  27 

It  is  unsatisfactory  merely  to  place  side  by  side 
differing,  contrasting,  and  sometimes  seemingly  con- 
tradictory, truths  without  effort  to  relate  or  to  har- 
monize them.  We  believe  in  the  unity  of  truth;  and 
we  wish  to  see  it.  The  sacramental  principle  is  essen- 
tially antithetic;  yet  the  Sacrament  itself  is  a  synthesis. 
The  clue  to  the  meaning  of  all  sacramental  truth  is  to 
be  found  in  our  Lord  Himself.  If  He,  subsisting  in 
two  natures,  is  the  great  Sacrament,  the  union  of  these 
two  in  His  one  Person  is  the  type  of  unity.  If  in 
Him  we  find  the  principle  of  life  which  impels  us  to 
make  distinctions  between  the  Creator  and  the  crea- 
ture, and  to  think  along  two  lines,  in  Him  also  we 
find  the  fact  of  coinherence  which  gives  the  law  and 
principle  of  unity  in  truth  and  in  life.  The  Sacrament 
which  distinguishes  also  combines;  and  in  Him  Who 
would  seem  to  be  the  most  striking  example  of  distinc- 
tion and  division,  there  is  on  the  contrary  the  most 
perfect  harmony  and  unity.  It  is  the  Gospel  which 
gives  the  clue  to  the  meaning  of  God's  life  and  of  our 
own. 

"Therefore  men  that  read  the  story 

Of  the  Manger  and  the  Rood, 
Well  may  greet  the  only  Gospel 

Straight  from  Him  the  only  Good: 
Heart  and  mind  go  forth  to  meet  it; 

This  is  light,  or  light  is  none,  — 
To  believe  in  God  the  Father 

And  in  Jesus  Christ  His  Son. 

"This  is  light;  —  where  dimness  lingers, 
Faith  can  wait  till  shadows  flee; 
And  Life's  riddles  less  perplex  us, 
When  the  truth  has  made  us  free. 


28  THE    SACRAMENTAL    PRINCIPLE 

Yea,  the  Truth  and  Light  Incarnate  — 

For  if  Christ  we  truly  scan, 
Him  we  trust  in,  we  must  worship, 

Word  made  Flesh,  and  God  made  Man  "  1 

1  Bright:  Hymns  and  Other  Verses,  Credo  in  Deum. 


CATHOLIC  AND  PROTESTANT 

The  sacramental  principle  underlies  the  history 
of  the  Christian  Church;  and  many  controversies  in 
the  Christian  past  are  best  understood  as  representing 
efforts  on  the  part  of  the  Church  to  be  loyal  to  both 
sides  of  this.  The  conflict  in  modern  times  between 
the  types  of  thought  commonly  known  as  Catholic 
and  Protestant  may  be  viewed  in  the  same  way.  It 
is  the  purpose  of  this  paper  to  consider  the  significance 
of  these  in  the  history  of  the  Church.1 


The  name  Catholic  —  Universal  —  has  been  applied 
to  the  Christian  Church  from  earliest  times.  It  was 
apparently  in  common  use  in  the  early  part  of  the 
second  century,  a  fact  which  implies  its  probable  adop- 
tion during  the  Apostolic  Age.     Ignatius  of  Antioch, 

1  The  reading  of  the  paper  at  the  Cathedral  Conference  was 
prefaced  as  follows:  "The  announcement  of  the  title  Catholic  and 
Protestant  will  suggest  to  some  of  you  that  I  intend  to  speak  of  the 
proposed  'change  of  name'  for  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church. 
Such  an  intention  I  disclaim.  It  is  true  that  this  choice  of  subject 
has  been  suggested  by  the  discussion  at  this  time,  and  that  all  the 
facts  rehearsed  have  direct  bearing  upon  it:  but  these  facts  have 
deeper  significance  than  what  concerns  the  common  title  of  a  reli- 
gious body  in  the  United  States.  I  have  taken  no  part  in  this  dis- 
cussion and  have  not  become  excited  about  it.     I  know  little  of  its 


30  CATHOLIC  AND  PROTESTANT 

writing  to  the  Church  in  Smyrna  about  the  year  110, 
says,  "Wheresoever  the  bishop  shall  appear,  there  let 

details.  I  have  received  dozens  of  pamphlets  on  the  subject;  but 
I  have  read  none  of  them,  nor  have  I  followed  the  matter  in  Church 
papers.  My  work  confines  me  to  a  country  diocese  where  I  live 
outside  the  discussions  of  newspapers  and  Church  Clubs.  Never- 
theless I  have  opinions  on  the  subject  of  'change  of  name,'  formed 
from  what  general  knowledge  I  have  of  the  state  of  the  Christian 
world  and  of  the  need  for  an  effective  presentation  of  Christianity 
in  my  own  diocese,  and  these  opinions  I  am  perfectly  willing  to  ex- 
press. Lest  my  disclaimer  of  intention  not  to  enter  this  controversy 
may  seem  to  indicate  desire  to  dodge  a  burning  question  by  taking 
refuge  in  the  coolness  of  generalities,  I  will  state  briefly  what  my 
opinions  are  merely  because  I  wish  to  dismiss  them. 

"1.  I  believe  that  a  change  in  the  legal  title  of  the  Protestant 
Episcopal  Church  would  be  a  good  thing.  I  was  in  hearty  sympathy 
with  the  proposal  made  at  the  last  General  Convention  to  relate 
the  common  title  to  the  name  of  the  whole  Church  enshrined  in 
the  Creeds.  The  unchangeable  name  of  the  Church  of  Christ,  the 
One  Holy  Catholic  and  Apostolic  Church,  stands  for  the  positive 
ideals  of  the  Divine  Society  which  it  is  the  duty  of  all  Christians  to 
realize  more  fully  in  themselves.  It  is  unfortunate  —  in  a  sense, 
wrong  —  that  separate  groups  of  Christians  need  any  other  name 
than  this.  It  is  mere  advertisement  of  a  divided  Christendom  that 
separated  bodies  have  to  choose  their  respective  labels,  the  badges 
of  schism.  Yet  under  present  conditions  the  distinguishing  names 
are  necessary;  and  they  should  express  as  Christian  ideals  as  possible. 
There  are  names  of  two  sorts,  those  which  express  some  aspect  of 
Christian  truth,  and  those  which  perpetuate  some  historic  quarrel. 
The  name  'Protestant  Episcopal'  is  one  of  the  latter  sort.  It  com- 
memorates, first,  a  quarrel  between  the  Church  of  England  and  the 
Church  of  Rome  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and,  second,  a  quarrel 
between  the  Church  of  England  and  Puritans  in  the  seventeenth. 
'Protestant  Episcopalians'  are  nominally  those  whose  characteristic 
quality  is  that  they  continue  to  quarrel  with  Romanists  and  Cal- 
vinists.  I  believe  that  the  Church  of  England  had  ground  for  its 
quarrels;  otherwise  I  should  not  belong  to  the  Anglican  Communion; 


CATHOLIC  AND  PROTESTANT  31 

the  people  be:  even  as  where  Jesus  is,  there  is  the 
Catholic  Church."     This  is  the  first  occurrence  of  the 

but  it  would  be  more  helpful  to  have  a  name  for  the  Church  which 
emphasized  points  of  agreement  with  Roman  Catholics  and  Presby- 
terians than  one  which  merely  called  attention  to  points  of  difference. 
Christianity  consists  of  faith  in  the  Living  Christ}  not  in  perpetuation 
of  quarrels  of  dead  men.  The  name  borne  by  any  religious  body  had 
better  express  an  ideal  than  chronicle  a  calamity.  Alexander  Camp- 
bell was  quite  right  in  not  wishing  his  followers  to  be  called 
'  Campbellites,'  a  name  recalling  his  own  personal  controversies 
with  Presbyterians  and  Baptists,  but  rather  'Disciples  of  Christ,' 
a  name  expressing  of  the  universal  Christian  ideal,  which  has  doubt- 
less had  an  excellent  effect  in  uplifting  the  standards  of  those  who 
specially  wish  to  bear  it.  The  men  of  the  eighteenth  century  who 
adopted  the  name  'Protestant  Episcopal'  did  the  best  they  knew 
how  to  select  a  title  which  seemed  appropriately  to  place  them  in 
the  context  of  religious  life  in  America:  but  the  name  is  not  one 
calculated  to  win  men  to  devotion  to  the  highest  Christian  principles 
for  America.  I  believe  that  a  change  of  this  name  is  desirable  and 
inevitable,  and  that  when  it  is  made,  we  shall  be  better  equipped  for 
our  work. 

"2.  However,  any  change  of  this  kind  must  come  in  response  to 
a  very  general  and  spontaneous  wish  in  the  Church  as  a  whole,  not 
by  the  forced  action  of  a  narrow  majority  in  a  controversy.  More- 
over, there  should  be  general  acquiescence  in  the  common  title 
chosen  as  substitute.  At  this  time  conditions  in  the  Church  do  not 
seem  ripe  for  the  change.  I  dislike  the  expression  'inexpedient  at 
the  present  time,'  which  usually  means,  'We  know  perfectly  well 
that  we  ought  to  do  a  particular  thing,  but  have  not  the  moral 
courage  to  do  it.'  Yet  it  might  describe  the  present  situation  to 
say  that,  though  change  of  this  name  is  desirable,  it  is  not  desirable 
that  it  be  made  now,  because  at  some  future  time  it  can  be  made 
better. 

"3.  The  discussion  of  the  matter  is  a  good  thing.  It  has  an 
educative  value.  But  as  some  one  said  to  me,  'What  we  need  is 
not  so  much  change  of  name  as  change  of  heart,'  or  as  it  might  be 
put,  'not  so  much  change  of  names  as  realization  of  things.'     We  can- 


32  CATHOLIC  AND  PROTESTANT 

term  in  any  document  which  has  happened  to  survive: 
but  Ignatius  refers  to  the  followers  of  our  Lord,  the 
universal  society,  by  a  title  which  he  evidently  expected 
those  whom  he  addressed  to  recognize.  Over  forty 
years  later,  the  Church  in  Smyrna  which  had  been 
greeted  by  Ignatius  on  his  way  to  martyrdom  at  Rome, 
issued  an  account  of  the  martyrdom  of  its  own  Bishop, 
Polycarp,  in  the  form  of  a  letter  to  the  church  in 
Philomelium.  This  letter  commenced:  "The  Church 
of  God  which  sojourneth  in  Smyrna  to  the  Church  of 
God  which  sojourneth  in  Philomelium  and  to  all  the 
brotherhoods  of  the  Holy  Catholic  Church  sojourning 
in  every  place;  mercy  and  peace  and  love  from  God 
the  Father  and  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  be  multiplied. " 
Thus  in  the  middle  of  the  second  century  was  the 
Church  throughout  the  world  distinguished  from  the 
local  congregations  which  composed  it.  In  the  litera- 
ture of  the  late  second  century  the  title  frequently 
occurs,  and  no  other  is  used  in  the  same  way.  It  was, 
as  matter  of  course,  taken  as  the  Church's  characteris- 
tic title  in  formal  professions  of  belief,  the  Creeds. 
Its  first  use  was  probably  intended  not  only  to  dis- 

not  change  the  Church  of  God,  though  we  may  ourselves  gradually 
grow  into  greater  appreciation  of  what  it  means.  Discussion  of 
names  is  mere  scratching  on  the  surface.  What  we  need  is  to  lay 
hold  of  the  principles  of  eternal  life  which  lie  behind  some  of  the 
names  which  we  habitually  and  unthinkingly  use. 

"Although  I  have  deliberately  chosen  to  speak  of  the  historic 
significance  of  the  names  Catholic  and  Protestant,  because  I  believe 
the  thought  of  them  to  be  much  in  our  minds  at  this  time,  I  shall 
miss  my  aim  altogether,  if  what  I  say  seems  merely  to  relate  to  a 
matter  of  local  appellation,  rather  than  to  principles  of  spiritual 
life  which  pertain  to  eternity  and  all  mankind." 


CATHOLIC  AND   PROTESTANT  33 

tinguish  the  whole  Church  from  local  bodies,  but  also 
to  mark  a  difference  between  the  Christian  Church 
and  the  Jewish,  the  former  being  universal  while  the 
latter  was  only  racial.  This  characteristic  of  Chris- 
tianity disappointed  the  expectation  of  the  Jews 
who  believed  that  their  race  had  a  monopoly  of  God's 
favour;  and  it  contradicts  all  theories  of  God's  work- 
ings which  would  restrict  His  grace  to  narrow  channels, 
or  deny  possibility  of  salvation  to  any  race  or  class  of 
men.  The  possible  scope  of  the  Church's  influence 
is  as  wide  as  humanity.1  It  was  St.  Paul  who  first 
learned  and  then  taught  the  truth  that  the  Church 
is  an  Universal  Church  in  which  Gentiles  are  fellow- 
heirs  of  God's  promises  side  by  side  with  Jews.  The 
term  has  a  twofold  suggestion.  It  has  reference  to 
the  whole  human  race  as  the  sphere  of  the  Church's 
potential  influence,  and  to  God  as  Creator  of  the 
race.  It  connects  the  thought  of  the  Church  with 
that  of  the  creation  of  man,  rather  than,  as  was  done 
by  the  Jewish  Church,  with  the  call  of  Abraham  and 
the  deliverance  from  Egypt. 

A  side-light  on  its  significance  may  be  thrown  by 
the  fact  that  at  the  time  of  its  general  adoption  the 
Church  was  engaged  in  controversies  with  Gnostics. 
Against  Gnostic  dualism  with  its  teaching  of  the  evil 
of  the  material  world,  produced  by  a  being  inferior 
or  hostile  to  God,  with  its  insistence  on  the  evil  of  the 
body,  and  its  restriction  of  redemption  to  a  limited 
number  of  enlightened  elect,  the  Church  proclaimed 
in  the  forefront  of  the  Creed  its  belief  in  God  the 

1  This  is  expanded  in  a  paper  on  The  Catholic  Church  given  in 
the  Appendix,  pp.  111-114. 
3 


34  CATHOLIC  AND  PROTESTANT 

Father  Almighty,  not  sharing  sway  with  a  hostile 
deity,  in  God  as  Maker  not  only  of  spiritual  heaven 
but  also  of  material  earth,  of  things  visible  as  well 
as  things  invisible,  of  man's  body  as  well  as  of  his 
spirit.  And  this  God  Who  had  created  all  things  and 
had  seen  that  they  were  good,  was  the  Saviour  and 
Redeemer,  not  of  an  esoteric  band  merely  as  Gnostics 
taught,  nor  of  the  seed  of  Abraham  only  as  Jews 
believed,  but  of  all  men.  "God  willeth  all  men  to  be 
saved;"  and  His  Church,  organ  and  medium  of  salva- 
tion, is  intended  for  all  mankind.  "Whosoever  will, 
let  him  come."  This  thought  of  the  whole  human  race 
as  object  of  the  Church's  effort  was  connected  with 
thought  of  God  as  universal  Creator,  and  also  with 
thought  of  our  Lord  as  not  merely  Second  Abraham, 
father  of  the  faithful  in  one  nation,  Jewish  Messiah, 
but  as  Second  Adam,  progenitor  of  the  whole  race, 
the  Catholic  Man.  This  sequence  of  thought  has  its 
origin  in  St.  Paul.  It  was  he  who  first  elaborated  the 
idea  of  our  Lord's  cosmic  relations,  presenting  Him 
as  "first-born  of  all  creation."  "All  things  were 
created  by  Him  and  for  Him,  and  He  is  before  all 
things,  and  by  Him  all  things  consist.  And  He  is 
the  head  of  the  body,  the  Church.  .  .  .  For  it  pleased 
the  Father  that  in  Him  should  all  fulness  dwell;  and 
having  made  peace  through  the  blood  of  His  cross,  by 
Him  to  reconcile  all  things  unto  Himself;  by  Him,  I 
say,  whether  they  be  things  in  earth  or  things  in 
heaven."  L  He  also  presented  the  Church  as  the 
Catholic  Organism.  "Now  in  Christ  Jesus  ye  who 
were  sometimes  far  off  are  made  nigh  by  the  blood  of 
1  Col.  i:  15-20. 


CATHOLIC  AND   PROTESTANT  35 

Christ.  For  He  is  our  peace,  Who  hath  made  both 
one,  and  hath  broken  down  mid  walls  of  partition."  l 
The  scope  of  redemption  is  as  wide  as  the  scope  of 
creation;  and  the  Church's  limits  are  therefore  merely 
those  of  the  human  race.  Abstractly  considered,  the 
term  Catholic  applied  to  the  Church  elevates  the 
thought  to  God  the  universal  Father  and  expands  it 
to  all  humanity  as  an  universal  brotherhood.  "To  as 
many  as  received  Him,  to  them  gave  He  power  to 
become  sons  of  God." 

Concretely  considered,  the  term  Catholic  has  in 
the  history  of  the  Church  been  used  to  emphasize  a 
number  of  principles  less  fundamental.2  Used  at  first 
of  the  Church  as  being  world-wide  in  extent,3  it  came 
to  be  the  special  name  for  the  Church,  so  that  a  martyr 
on  his  trial  when  asked  of  what  Church  he  was,  replied 
"Of  the  Catholic,  for  Christ  has  no  other."  During 
the  late  second  century  it  became  a  term  to  distinguish 
the  Church  as  a  whole  from  sects  and  groups  of  Chris- 
tians who  adopted  names  taken  from  places  and  party 
leaders.  A  Catholic  Christian  was  one  who  repudiated 
all  merely  local  bodies  and  select  parties;  and  the 
Catholic  Church  was  distinguished  from  heretical  and 
schismatical  sects.  Thus  Pacian,  Bishop  of  Barcelona 
during  the  latter  part  of  the  fourth  century,  writing 

1  Eph.  ii:  11-22. 

2  Such  comments  as  are  here  made  are  by  no  means  exhaustive. 
They  are  true  as  far  as  they  go;  but  they  do  not,  and  do  not  pre- 
tend to,  cover  the  whole  ground.  They  are  to  be  taken  as  fragmen- 
tary contribution  toward,  not  as  complete  outline  of,  the  discussion 
of  a  great  subject. 

3  Cf .  Optatus  II :46.  Cum  inde  dicta  sit  Catholica,  quod  sit  rationalis 
et  ubique  diffusa. 


36  CATHOLIC  AND  PROTESTANT 

to  a  Novatian  friend,  Sempronian,  follows  this  line 
in  a  letter  on  "The  Catholic  Name."  l  "There  ought," 
he  says,  "to  be  no  contest  about  the  name  Catholic. 
For  if  it  is  through  God  that  our  people  obtain  this 
name,  no  question  is  to  be  raised,  when  Divine  au- 
thority is  followed.  If  through  man,  we  must  dis- 
cover when  it  was  first  taken.  Then  if  the  name  is 
good,  no  odium  rests  with  it:  if  ill,  it  need  not  be 
envied.  The  Novatians,  I  hear,  are  called  after 
Novatus  or  Novatian;  yet  it  is  the  sect  which  I  accuse 
in  them,  not  the  name:  nor  has  any  one  objected  their 
name  to  Montanus  or  the  Phrygians.  But  under  the 
Apostles,  you  will  say,  no  one  was  called  Catholic. 
Be  it  so.  Thus  it  shall  have  been.  Allow  even  that. 
But  when  after  the  Apostles  heresies  burst  forth,  and 
were  striving  under  various  names  to  tear  piecemeal 
and  divide  the  Dove  and  Queen  of  God,  did  not  the 
Apostolic  people  require  a  name  of  their  own,  whereby 
to  mark  the  unity  of  the  people  that  were  uncorrupted, 
lest  the  error  of  some  rend  limb  by  limb  the  undefiled 
virgin  of  God?  Was  it  not  seemly  that  the  chief  head 
should  be  distinguished  by  its  own  peculiar  appella- 
tion? Suppose  this  very  day  I  entered  a  populous  city. 
When  I  found  Marcionites,  Apollinarians,  Cataphry- 
gians,  Novatians,  and  others  of  the  kinds  who  call 
themselves  Christians,  by  what  name  should  I  recog- 
nize the  congregation  of  my  own  people,  unless  it  were 
named  Catholic?  Certainly  that  which  has  stood  for 
so  many  ages  was  not  borrowed  from  men.  This 
name  Catholic  sounds  not  of  Marcion,  of  Apelles,  or 
of  Montanus,  nor  does  it  take  heretics  as  its  authors. 
1  Pacian:  Epistle  I:  5-8,  esp.  8. 


CATHOLIC  AND  PROTESTANT  37 

...  Is  the  authority  of  Apostolic  men,  of  primitive 
priests,  of  slight  weight  with  us?  .  .  .  Shall  the  fathers 
follow  our  authority  and  the  antiquity  of  saints  give 
way  to  be  amended  by  us,  and  times  now  putrefying 
through  their  sins  pluck  out  the  grey  hairs  of  Apostolic 
age?  And  yet,  my  brother,  be  not  troubled:  Chris- 
tian is  my  name,  but  Catholic  is  my  surname.  The 
former  gives  me  a  name,  the  latter  distinguishes  me. 
By  the  one  I  am  approved;  by  the  other  I  am  but 
marked.  And  if  at  last  we  must  give  an  account  of 
the  word  Catholic,  and  draw  it  out  from  the  Greek 
by  a  Latin  interpretation,  *  Catholic'  is  'everywhere 
one '  —  ubique  unum  —  or,  as  learned  men  think, 
'obedience  in  all,'  i.e.,  all  the  commands  of  God.  .  .  . 
Therefore  he  who  is  a  Catholic,  the  same  man  is  obe- 
dient. He  who  is  obedient,  the  same  is  a  Christian :  and 
thus  the  Catholic  is  a  Christian.  Wherefore  our  people 
when  named  Catholic  are  separated  by  this  appellation 
from  the  heretical  name.  But  if  also  the  word  Catho- 
lic means  'everywhere  one,'  as  those  first  think,  .  .  . 
amidst  all  she  is  one,  and  one  over  all.  If  thou  askest 
the  reason  of  the  name,  enough  has  been  said." 

This  explanation  of  Pacian,  a  western  Bishop 
trained  in  the  school  of  Cyprian,  indicates  very  well 
the  part  played  by  the  name  Catholic  Church  during 
the  conciliar  period.  The  Universal  Church  was  dis- 
tinguished from  small  bodies  of  Christians,  who,  at 
different  times  and  places,  adopted  some  specialty 
proclaimed  as  the  chief  thing  in  Christianity  and 
endeavored  to  perpetuate  their  peculiarity  by  cor- 
porate organization.  The  World  Church  was  set 
over  against  the  petty  societies  of  particular  places 


38  CATHOLIC  AND  PROTESTANT 

and  persons.  The  distinction  could  be  easily  made 
in  the  days  of  undivided  Christendom,  the  day,  that 
is,  not  when  all  Christians  were  completely  of  one 
mind,  but  when  the  intercommunion  of  Bishops 
throughout  the  world,  acting  under  the  leadership  of 
the  great  historic  sees,  preserved  a  general  union  of 
Christians  and  held  the  Church  together  as  one  organi- 
zation, the  unity  of  which  the  world  could  see.  Dif- 
ferences and  divergencies  there  might  be;  but  there 
was  as  yet  no  division  except  the  self-isolation  of 
inconsiderable  fractions  here  and  there.  The  term 
"Catholic  Church"  stood  out  in  the  fulness  of  its 
obvious  outward  meaning  until  the  separation  of  East 
and  West.  Even  after  this,  it  still  kept  much  of  its 
significance,  since  appeal  could  be  made  to  the  teaching 
of  the  undivided  Church,  and  for  long  the  feeling  was 
maintained  that  the  two  parts  of  the  Church,  though 
for  a  time  out  of  communion,  were  still  one.  But 
after  a  time,  each  of  the  two  great  divisions  of  Chris- 
tendom claimed  by  itself  to  be  the  only  true  Church. 
The  East  claimed,  and  still  claims,  that  it  alone  can 
be  recognized  as  the  Catholic  Church.  It  has  never 
changed ;  but  the  West,  it  argues,  cut  itself  off,  thereby 
going  into  schism,  and  can  only  be  restored  to  the 
Church  by  submission  to  the  terms  imposed  by  the 
eastern  patriarchates  which  have  never  swerved  from 
the  ancient  faith.  It  is  not  always  sufficiently  recog- 
nized that  the  Greek  Church  makes  as  exclusive  claims 
to  be  the  one  true  Church  as  does  the  Latin.  Rome, 
it  considers,  was  the  primitive  Protestant,  which 
defied  Church-authority  and  cut  itself  off,  thereby 
establishing  a  bad  precedent  which  has  been  farther 


CATHOLIC  AND  PROTESTANT  39 

followed  in  the  fickle  West.  The  following  is  a  typical 
statement  of  the  attitude  of  the  Eastern  Church  to 
the  Christian  world. 

"By  the  will  of  God  the  Holy  Church,  after  the  fall- 
ing away  of  many  schisms  and  of  the  Roman  Patriar- 
chate, was  preserved  by  the  Greek  Eparchies  and 
Patriarchates,  and  only  those  communities  can  acknowl- 
edge one  another  as  fully  Christian,  which  preserve 
their  unity  with  the  Eastern  Patriarchates,  or  enter 
into  this  unity.  For  there  is  one  God  and  one  Church, 
and  within  her  there  is  neither  dissension  or  disagree- 
ment. And,  therefore,  the  Church  is  called  Orthodox, 
or  Eastern,  or  Greco-Russian;  but  all  these  are  only 
temporary  designations.  The  Church  ought  not  to 
be  accused  of  pride  for  calling  herself  Orthodox,  inas- 
much as  she  also  calls  herself  Holy.  When  false  doc- 
trines shall  have  disappeared,  there  will  be  no  further 
need  of  the  name  Orthodox:  for  then  there  will  be  no 
erroneous  Christianity.  When  the  Church  shall  have 
extended  herself,  or  the  fulness  of  the  nations  shall 
have  entered  into  her,  then  all  local  appellations  will 
cease;  for  the  Church  is  not  bound  up  with  any  local- 
ity, and  neither  boasts  herself  of  any  particular  see 
or  territory,  nor  preserves  the  inheritance  of  Pagan 
pride:  but  she  calls  herself  One  Holy  Catholic  and 
Apostolic:  knowing  that  the  whole  world  belongs  to 
her,  and  that  no  locality  therein  possesses  any  special 
significance,  but  only  temporarily  can  and  does  serve 
for  the  glorification  of  the  name  of  God,  according  to 
His  unsearchable  will.'"1 

1  Khomiakoff  quoted  in  Birkbeck  :  Russia  and  the  English  Church, 
p.  222. 


40  CATHOLIC  AND   PROTESTANT 

The  attitude  of  the  Church  of  Rome  scarcely  calls 
for  comment.  The  great  patriarchal  See  of  the  West, 
forced  into  a  position  of  ecclesiastical  leadership  by  a 
combination  of  circumstances,  inheriting  not  only 
Apostolic  traditions  from  its  Christian  beginnings,  but 
also  the  imperial  traditions  of  the  Eternal  City,  passed 
from  a  position  of  patriarchal  primacy  to  one  of  suprem- 
acy over  the  churches  of  western  Europe,  and  gradu- 
ally evolved  a  theory  of  the  Church  and  of  unity  which 
it  has  sought  to  impose  on  the  Christian  World.  Since 
the  beginning  of  the  Middle  Ages  the  Roman  Bishop 
has  claimed  to  be  ruler  of  the  Church  and  World  by 
Divine  right,  by  inheritance  of  the  position  of  Vicar 
of  Christ  from  St.  Peter.  The  See  of  Peter  is  head 
and  centre  of  the  Church;  and  to  be  Catholic  Chris- 
tian is  to  be  in  communion  with  the  Pope. 

The  upheaval  of  western  Christendom  during  the 
sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  further  com- 
plicated matters.  The  claims  of  many  to  have  dis- 
covered the  only  true  Biblical  Christianity  has  set 
up  many  new  standards;  and  many  bodies  have  claimed 
to  represent  the  true  spirit  of  the  Catholic  Church, 
using  the  term  in  such  a  way  as  virtually  to  empty  it 
of  concrete  significance.  Yet  there  has  been  persist- 
ent hold  of  the  name  and  yearning  for  the  thing  it 
represents  among  the  manifold  divisions  of  the  Protes- 
tant world.  As  Dr.  Newman  Smyth  writes  in  a  recent 
article: l  "One  primary  idea  appears  in  all  these 
Confessional  definitions  of  the  Church;  their  common 
heritage  and  hope,  which  none  of  them  would  lose,  is 
denoted  by  the  ever-recurring  word  Catholic.  The 
1  Constructive  Quarterly,  No.  2,  p.  231. 


CATHOLIC  AND  PROTESTANT  41 

catholicity  which  is  ascribed  primarily  in  these  declara- 
tions to  the  invisible  Church,  is  recognized  also  ex- 
plicitly by  some,  and  implicitly  in  others,  as  a  true 
note  likewise  also  of  the  visible  Church.  It  is  generally 
held  and  declared  that  particular  churches  should 
retain  their  fellowship  in,  and  realize  their  obligations 
to,  the  one  Catholic  Church.  The  reformers  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  it  should  be  remembered,  did  not 
set  the  words,  Protestant  and  Catholic,  in  hostile 
antithesis.  .  .  .  The  word  Catholic  remains  among 
Protestants  to  this  day,  hallowed  and  lifted  up  above 
our  'unhappy  divisions'  as  the  ideal  oneness  of  all 
communions."  Dr.  Smyth's  definition  of  Catholic 
is  worth  remembering,  "the  ideal  oneness  of  all 
communions." 

There  was  once  an  actual  unity  of  the  majority  of 
those  bearing  the  Christian  name,  which  made  it 
natural  to  speak  of  the  Catholic  Church.  Although 
this  has  long  ceased  to  be,  the  ideal  of  Catholic  Unity 
is  still  maintained  even  among  many  who  have  drifted 
far  from  the  corporate  sense  to  which  the  ideal  owes 
any  actual  embodiment.  It  counts  for  much  that 
among  the  great  majority  of  Christians  at  the  present 
day  there  is  growing  conviction  that  there  ought  to 
be  unity  of  faith  among  all  who  profess  themselves 
servants  of  Christ,  and  that  this  unity  of  faith  ought 
to  exhibit  itself  in  the  unity  of  One  Church  for  the 
world.  The  Catholic  aspiration  is  a  common  posses- 
sion; and  more  and  more  is  there  conviction  that  by 
humility  and  patience  effort  must  be  made  to  realize 
the  Catholic  Church  in  fact.  It  is  almost  inevitable 
for  men  to  hold  to  the  Catholic  ideal,  if  they  have 


42  CATHOLIC  AND  PROTESTANT 

anything  of  the  historic  sense.  The  Catholic  Church 
is  the  Church  of  the  Fathers,  different  in  ways  from 
all  existing  presentations  of  Christianity,  yet  with 
clearly  defined  principles  and  aspects  which  have 
never  been  wholly  lost  in  the  shattering  of  divisions. 
It  still  exists  underneath  as  well  as  behind  the  frac- 
tions of  the  Christian  world;  and  its  principles  are 
revealed  by  fragmentary  expression.  The  conception 
of  the  Universal  Church  can  never  be  ignored  by  those 
who  can  look  behind  and  beyond  things  of  the  moment 
to  the  things  which  belong  to  all  time. 

The  history  of  the  name  Catholic  is  practically 
coeval  with  that  of  the  Church.  During  nineteen  cen- 
turies it  has  been  used  in  different  senses  of  which  six 
may  be  distinguished.  (1)  The  Universal  Church  as 
distinct  from  the  Jewish  Church.  If,  as  is  probable, 
this  formed  part  of  its  primary  meaning,  it  expresses 
the  favorite  thesis  of  St.  Paul.  (2)  The  World  Church 
as  distinct  from  local  churches  or  congregations.  In 
this  sense  it  is  used  by  Ignatius  and  in  the  account  of 
the  martyrdom  of  Polycarp.  (3)  The  World  Church 
as  distinct  from  heretical  and  schismatical  sects.  This 
is  the  special  meaning  attached  to  it  in  the  treatise  of 
Pacian  on  The  Catholic  Name.  All  these  meanings 
entered  into  the  connotation  in  the  days  of  the  undi- 
vided Church.  (4)  The  Greek  Church,  representing 
the  four  eastern  patriarchates,  which  believes  itself 
alone  to  be  the  primitive  Catholic  Church  since  the 
defection  of  the  West.  (5)  The  Roman  Communion, 
maintaining  that  it  alone  is  the  Church  on  the  theory 
that  prerogatives  of  St.  Peter  as  Vicar  of  Christ  have 
descended  to  the  Roman  Papacy,  which  is  thus  Divinely 


CATHOLIC  AND  PROTESTANT  43 

established  as  visible  head  of  the  Church  and  centre 
and  bond  of  visible  unity.  (6)  "The  ideal  oneness  of 
all  Christians,"  associated  by  some  with  recognition 
of  that  background  of  historic  principle  which  links 
the  Church  of  the  early  centuries  with  Churches  of 
today.  As  used  by  many  of  ourselves,  the  name 
Catholic  Church  represents  a  theory  and  a  fact,  the 
theory  of  the  unity  of  all  sharers  in  the  One  Baptism 
of  the  One  Lord  and  the  fact  of  the  continuity  in 
Christian  history  of  certain  structural  principles  of 
faith  and  life  which  make  it  possible  to  recognize  the 
survival  of  the  One  Church  in  the  fragmentary  pres- 
entation of  a  divided  Christendom. 

These  different  uses  of  the  name  Catholic  have 
expressed  with  varying  degrees  of  clearness  certain 
main  ideas,  of  which  four  may  be  specified  as  most 
important:  (1)  The  Divine  element  in  the  Church,  (2) 
the  corporate  aspect  of  religious  life,  (3)  the  authority 
of  the  Church,  and  (4)  the  mystical  character  of  the 
Church's  life.  These  all  hang  together.  The  first 
is  the  distinctive  principle,  the  others  corollaries.  The 
Church  comes  from  God,  and  is  the  sphere  of  His 
special  activity.  It  follows  as  necessary  consequence 
that  it  conforms  to  the  social  law  of  creation,  that 
it  represents  His  authority,  and  that  its  life  consists 
of  contact  with  Him. 

(1)  The  fundamental  idea  of  the  Catholic  concep- 
tion of  the  Church  is  that  it  is  a  Divine  organism,  a 
society  in  which  there  is  special  and  supernatural 
activity  of  Almighty  God,  "a  Divine  society  with  a 
human  mission."  The  Catholic  idea  starts  with  God, 
proceeds  from  thought  of  Him  to  that  of  all  creation, 


44  CATHOLIC  AND  PROTESTANT 

and  thence  to  the  universal  scope  of  salvation  of  which 
the  Church  is  appointed  instrument.  It  is  concerned 
with  the  only  theory  which  gives  the  life  and  worship 
of  the  Church  intelligible  meaning.  Following  a 
necessary  order  of  thought,  it  traces  everything  from 
its  origin  in  God. 

(2)  The  mission  of  the  Church  to  all  men  necessarily 
lays  stress  on  its  corporate  aspect,  on  the  fact  that  it 
is  a  family  not  a  mere  aggregation  of  units,  a  body  not 
a  dust-heap.1  The  Church  is  a  "new  creation";  and 
the  method  of  salvation  or  recreation  is  analogous  to 
that  of  the  original  creation.  God  created  man  and 
woman  with  powers  of  begetting  a  race:  His  creative 
function  was  put  into  commission.  He  placed  man 
on  the  earth  with  the  command,  "Be  fruitful  and 
multiply  and  replenish  the  earth  and  subdue  it."  In 
the  era  of  the  new  creation,  He  again  sent  men  with 
powers  of  begetting  a  new  race  by  a  new  birth  with 
the  command,  "Go  ye  therefore  and  teach  all  nations 
baptizing  them  in  the  Name  of  the  Father  and  of  the 
Son  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  teaching  them  to  observe 
all  things  whatsoever  I  have  commanded  you."  The 
principle  of  salvation  is  that  of  creation,  that  man 
gains  all  his  powers  and  possibilities  of  self-realization 
as  member  of  a  family,  that  God's  gifts  are  given  to 
the  race,  that  the  individual  only  can  share  them  by 
inheritance  and  association.  Normal  human  life 
abhors  isolation  as  Nature  abhors  a  vacuum. 

(3)  Both  these  principles,  the  Divine  origin  of  the 

1  As  Burke  speaks  of  "  the  dust  and  powder  of  individualism," 
or  another,  Hibernior  Hibernis,  of  "the  uselessness  of  un-unified 
units"! 


CATHOLIC  AND  PROTESTANT  45 

Church  and  the  social  method  of  salvation,  lead  to 
thought  of  the  Church's  authority.  The  Church  repre- 
sents God;  or  more  exactly,  it  is  the  Body  of  Christ, 
Christ's  Vicar  on  earth.  In  so  far  as  it  truly  represents 
His  teaching  and  activity,  it  is  invested  with  Divine 
authority.  "He  that  receiveth  you  receiveth  Me." 
It  is  an  Apostolic  Church,  a  Church  having  mission 
from  Christ;  and  the  idea  of  authority  is  inherent  in 
that  of  Apostolicity.  Furthermore,  as  a  society  it 
represents  something  paramount  to  the  claims  of 
individuals.  The  many  members  of  the  body  must 
discharge  their  respective  functions  with  the  harmony 
of  the  subordination.  The  body  must  be  considered 
as  a  whole;  no  member  has  use  or  life  except  as  one 
of  many  coordinate  parts.  There  is,  therefore,  in 
any  body  an  authority  to  which  all  component  parts 
must  submit.  So  in  the  Church.  From  the  thought 
of  the  Body  as  body  comes  the  idea  of  authority  as 
well  as  from  thought  of  that  Body's  Head.  The 
practical  consequence  of  adherence  to  the  Catholic 
conception  of  the  Church  is  the  spirit  of  obedience. 
Pacian,  after  making  his  much-quoted  utterance, 
"Christian  is  my  name,  Catholic  my  surname,"  almost 
immediately  adds,  "Therefore  he  who  is  a  Catholic, 
the  same  man  is  obedient."  Catholicity  in  principle 
involves  reverent  submission  to  authority  in  practice. 
Nothing  more  sincerely  expresses  belief  in  the  Divine 
character  of  the  Church  than  recognition  of  the  para- 
mount claims  of  the  whole  Church  over  those  of  special 
interests  and  recognition  of  leadership  in  its  constituted 
officers.  Yet  there  are  many  examples  of  discrepancy 
between  the  theory  and  practice  of  professed  Catholics. 


46  CATHOLIC  AND  PROTESTANT 

As  in  the  case  of  extreme  predestinarians  the  theory 
of  Divine  absolutism  has  been  made  a  cloak  for  wilful- 
ness and  eccentricity  in  conduct,  so  the  Catholic  theory 
of  the  Church  has  sometimes  been  made  a  stalking- 
horse  for  mundane  politics  and  for  ultra-assertions  of 
private  judgment.  The  great  example  of  the  former 
is  the  identification  of  the  interests  of  the  Catholic 
Church  with  the  ecclesiastical  transformation  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  sometimes  appearing  as  Papal  autoc- 
racy, sometimes  as  Curial  oligarchy.  There  are 
examples  of  the  latter  in  those  who,  claiming  almost 
a  monopoly  of  the  Catholic  name,  are  conspicuous 
examples  of  Protestant  individualism  in  their  wilful 
following  of  their  own  theories  in  defiance  of  authority. 
But  caricatures  must  not  be  allowed  to  obscure  truth. 
The  Catholic  theory  always  expresses  the  principle  of 
authority;  but  this  authority  is  that  of  the  Church's 
Divine  Head,  which  has  to  be  protected  from  disguis- 
ing nullifications  in  the  traditions  of  men.  The  Church 
has  to  speak  and  act  in  our  Lord's  Name  for  the  sake 
of  doing  His  work.  When  she  does  this,  she  has  His 
authority:  but  no  appropriation  of  sacred  names  can 
give  authority  to  teaching  and  action  alien  from  His 
spirit.  There  have  been  times  when  the  Church  has 
striven  to  exercise  authority  for  authority's  own  sake 
and  for  the  apparent  enhancing  of  her  own  reputation. l 
Authority  cannot  be  dispensed  with:    but   its   poles 

1  In  the  School  which  I  attended  as  a  boy,  there  was  a  master 
of  the  lower  forms  of  whom  this  story  was  told.  One  day  he  an- 
nounced, "The  Amazon  River  is  three  hundred  thousand  miles  long." 
Up  went  the  hands  of  sundry  small  boys.  "Please,  sir,  the  book 
says  three  thousand."     "Silence,"  roared  the  pedagogue,  "/  say  the 


CATHOLIC  AND  PROTESTANT  47 

are  those  of  truth  and  right.  Only  as  it  preserves 
these  two  can  it  be  justified;  but  it  is  justified  in  those 
who  are  genuinely  loyal  to  our  Lord.  "Only  they 
who  obey  know  how  to  command."  Capacity  for 
rule  inheres  in  the  spirit  of  submission.  Exercise  of 
authority  may  be  a  tyranny;  and  there  has  been 
tyrannous  assertion  of  false  authority  in  the  Church. 
Yet  there  is  a  true  authority  which  is  only  laying  on 
the  shoulders  of  faithful  servants  the  easy  yoke  of 
Christ.  In  the  service  which  involves  recognition  of 
Him  as  Master  and  Lord  lies  the  secret  of  perfect 
freedom. 

(4)  Thought  of  God  also  involves  consciousness  of 
the  mystical  character  of  the  Church's  life.  The 
lifting  up  of  hearts  unto  our  Lord  involves  the  spirit 
of  prayer,  the  habit  of  worship,  the  seeking  of  Divine 
realities  through  human  and  material  means  and  signs, 
sacramental  activity.  The  Catholic-minded  are  essen- 
tially mystics.  In  modern  times,  emphasis  on  the 
Catholic  idea  has  often  meant   chiefly  this,  that  in 

Amazon  River  is  three  hundred  thousand  miles  long.  Say  it  after 
me."  And  they  all  did.  The  length  of  the  Amazon  was  a  matter 
of  indifference  to  him:  his  own  reputation  for  infallibility  was  all- 
important.  He  was  determined  to  maintain  the  latter,  and  believed 
he  did  so,  even  though  there  were  dangers  of  excessive  irrigation  in 
South  America!  Yet  all  the  time  the  Amazon  pursued  its  compara- 
tively limited  course.  Ecclesiastical  infallibility  has  sometimes 
resembled  that  of  this  uneasy  schoolmaster.  The  Roman  tendency 
to  rule  has  striven  to  dominate  the  complexities  of  truth  and  the 
complications  of  life,  even  laws  of  Nature  which  are  refractory  when 
not  controlled  by  being  obeyed.  Yet  the  earth  has  moved,  as 
Galileo  muttered,  and  has  carried  even  Rome  along  with  it.  In 
the  same  way  many  Protestant  prophets,  caring  more  for  definiteness 
than  for  accuracy,  have  often  sacrificed  paramount  claims  of  truth. 


48  CATHOLIC  AND   PROTESTANT 

the  Church  and  in  all  life  we  may  be  conscious  of  the 
special  action  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  and  may  lay  hold 
on  spiritual  things  which  belong  to  eternal  life.  Cathol- 
icism is  alive  to  the  meaning  of  Whitsunday.  Belief 
in  the  Church  is  merely  consequence  of  belief  in  the 
Holy  Spirit,  as  belief  in  the  Holy  Spirit  is  consequent 
upon  belief  in  our  Lord.  A  true  Catholic  is  one  who 
does  not  regard  the  Descent  of  the  Holy  Spirit  at 
Pentecost  as  a  mystifying  version  of  some  ancient 
event  with  which  we  have  little  practical  concern,  but 
who  sees  in  it  the  inauguration  of  the  era  in  which  we 
ourselves  live,  the  explanation  of  those  things  which 
chiefly  concern  us.  His  type  and  habit  of  mind  is  con- 
stitutionally deductive.  He  draws  all  inferences  from 
Divine  premises,  is  concerned  primarily  with  first 
principles,  and,  in  thinking  first  of  God  and  then  of 
the  world  in  relation  to  God,  follows  the  normal  order 
of  religious  thought.  "In  the  beginning  was  the 
Word;  and  the  Word  was  with  God;  and  the  Word 
was  God."  There  is  the  preliminary  statement  of  the 
typical  mystic.  It  is  in  the  writings  of  St.  John,  in 
the  vision  of  one  who  was  preeminently  the  Seer  or 
Divine,  in  the  practical  applications  of  the  disciple 
whom  Jesus  loved,  who  had  drawn  closest  to  the  heart 
of  the  Master,  that  we  have  the  best  expression  of 
those  principles  and  that  order  of  thought  to  which 
the  name  Catholic  can  be  best  applied.  There  is 
more  than  this  in  St.  John,  as  there  is  in  St.  Paul: 
but  as  mystic,  St.  John  may  be  taken  as  classical 
example  of  what  is  illustrated  and  expressed  by  the 
Catholic  type  of  Christian.  The  Catholic  principle 
stands  for  the  Divine  side  of  truth  and  of  life.     This 


CATHOLIC  AND   PROTESTANT  49 

is  only  one  side,  unnatural  isolation  of  which  may 
lead  to  error:  but  it  is  a  necessary  side  of  all  truth; 
and  it  is  the  side  which  stands  first. 


II 

The  name  Protestant,  which  has  a  history  of  almost 
four  hundred  years,  and  the  religious  movement  in 
modern  times  with  which  it  is  associated,  have  chiefly 
to  do  with  the  human  side  of  things.  It  has  had  four 
different  meanings.  Originally  it  was  synonymous 
with  Lutheran.  The  German  princes  who  signed  a 
protest  against  the  revocation  of  an  edict  of  tolera- 
tion of  Lutherans,  sent  to  the  Emperor  Charles  V, 
at  the  Diet  of  Speier  in  1529,  were  known  as  "the 
Protestants"  and  their  party  as  "the  protestant  party." 
Eventually  the  name  was  given  to  all  Lutherans,  who 
were  thereby  distinguished  not  only  from  adherents 
of  the  Pope,  but  also  from  followers  of  Zwingli  and 
Calvin,  who  were  called  "Reformed."  In  the  latter 
part  of  the  sixteenth  century  the  name  acquired  its 
second  meaning  by  adoption  in  England  to  indicate 
the  Church  of  England  party.  "Protestant"  in 
England  meant  Anglican  as  distinct  from  both  Papist 
and  Puritan.  Later,  especially  during  the  eighteenth 
century,  it  came  to  be  commonly  used  as  generic  name 
for  all  western  Christians  who  were  not  Roman  Catho- 
lics; and  this  third  sense  of  non-Roman  quickly 
passed  with  some  into  the  fourth  of  non-Catholic. 
It  is  still  used  in  different  senses.  Lutherans  still 
claim  it  in  some  places  as  especially  their  own.  Angli- 
cans still  use  it  in  a  somewhat  vaguer  sense  than  it  had 
4 


50  CATHOLIC  AND   PROTESTANT 

first  in  England.  By  some  it  is  still  used  to  express 
repudiation  of  papal  claims  without  indicating  repudia- 
tion of  the  historic  Church;  by  others  it  is  a  synonym 
for  the  rejection  of  almost  everything  ancient  for  the 
sake  of  fresh  beginnings. 

In  history,  Protestantism  has  stood  positively  for 
the  expression  of  certain  great  truths,  for  (1)  individu- 
alism in  religion,  individual  responsibility,  individual 
right,  individual  importance;  for  (2)  fulness  and  free- 
dom of  life,  spiritual  liberty  as  contrasted  with  eccle- 
siastical servitude:  for  (3)  practical  and  progressive 
philanthropy.  The  achievements  of  the  nations  of 
northern  Europe  during  the  last  three  centuries,  all 
of  them  for  the  most  part  under  Protestant  influences, 
have  exhibited  the  positive  strength  of  the  religious 
motive.  Strong  men,  intent  on  accomplishing  good 
purposes  for  themselves  and  for  their  fellows,  have 
made  an  impression  on  modern  history,  which  assures 
transmission  of  many  blessings  to  posterity.  Protes- 
tantism has  been  the  informing  spirit  of  a  democratic 
age;  and  most  of  the  special  blessings  the  world  owes 
to  this  democratic  age  may  be  not  unjustly  ascribed 
to  its  influence.  Self-development  and  class-protection 
are  ideals  of  the  time;  and  of  both  in  the  sphere  of 
religion,  Protestantism  is  the  most  obvious  expression. 1 
In  this  connection  it  is  necessary  merely  to  emphasize 
that  on  the  whole  the  Protestant  idea  is  the  human 
idea,  and  that  the  strength  of  Protestantism  is  the 

1  Such  statement  as  1  can  make  of  this  fact  will  be  found  in  a 
paper  on  The  Achievements  and  Failures  of  Protestantism  published 
several  years  ago.  Kinsman:  Principles  of  Anglicanism  pp.  127- 
135. 


CATHOLIC  AND  PROTESTANT        51 

strength  of  humanitarianism.  At  the  end  of  the 
Middle  Ages  the  world  needed  a  healthy  human  touch. 
The  Reformation  aimed  at  giving  something  healthy 
and  human,  though  it  must  be  admitted  that  its 
touches  were  sometimes  laid  on  with  a  sledge-hammer. 
The  positive  principles  of  Protestantism  made  their 
mark:  their  effects  are  with  us;  and  the  world  can 
never  lose  them.  They  have  been  wrought  into  the 
warp  and  woof  of  the  social  fabric  of  the  stronger 
nations  in  the  modern  world;  and  their  influence  is 
daily  more  apparent  in  places  and  peoples  which  have 
only  come  indirectly  under  it.  There  is  no  danger 
now  of  losing  grip  of  the  great  principles  for  which 
the  reformers  had  to  struggle.  The  fights  of  three 
centuries  ago  have  been  won.  We  can  rest  on  the 
laurels  of  others  and  be  thankful. 

But  there  is  another  side  to  the  history.  In  its 
origin  Protestantism  found  itself  in  an  attitude  of 
antagonism  to  the  prevailing  standards  of  Christianity. 
It  had  to  attack  and  destroy  abuses,  and  had  to  criti- 
cise the  whole  system  to  which  abuses  had  become 
attached.  At  every  stage  in  its  history  has  the  chief 
output  of  Protestant  energy  been  displayed  in  its 
onslaught  on  existing  institutions.  It  is  essentially 
combative,  offensive,  destructive,  fighting  not  only 
for  a  cause  but  also  more  or  less  for  love  of  the  fray. 
The  name,  indicating  constitutional  opposition,  has 
possibly  aggravated  the  tendency  by  suggesting  that 
strenuous  fault-finding  is  essential  to  religion.  At 
any  rate,  one  marked  result  of  the  influence  has  been 
an  epidemic  of  chronic  cantankerousness.  One  of 
the  most  painful  things  in  modern  religious  history  is 


52  CATHOLIC  AND   PROTESTANT 

the  fact  that  the  religious  ideal  of  many  people  is  loud- 
mouthed denunciation,  the  exhibition  of  all  unchari- 
tableness  in  angry  and  ungoverned  speech.  Men 
who  are  gentlemen  in  all  private  relations,  civil  in 
business,  fairly  decent  in  politics,  are  utterly  intolerant 
and  intolerable  when  it  comes  to  matters  of  religion. 
Preaching  the  Gospel  has  been  identified  with  indis- 
criminate abuse;  and  there  are  still  places  in  which 
"the  preaching  voice"  is  the  vocal  embodiment  of 
bad  temper.  There  are  many  whose  chief  idea  of 
religious  zeal  is  expression  of  discontent.  The  first 
Protestants  made  a  common  attack  on  the  Pope,  but 
they  soon  found  in  each  other  even  more  convenient 
targets  for  their  missiles  of  invective.  There  is  no 
form  of  Protestantism  which  does  not  retain  something 
of  this  habit  of  opprobrium.  To  quote  the  moderate 
language  of  an  eminent  divine  of  the  Free  Church  of 
Scotland:  "In  its  original  form  Protestantism  repre- 
sented a  criticism  of  traditional  Christianity.  On  the 
strength  of  a  new  and  immediate  apprehension  of  the 
mercy  of  God  in  Christ,  it  was  critical  of  the  Catholic 
institutional  Christianity  in  all  its  aspects.  In  modern 
times  it  has  come  to  a  clearer  consciousness  of  itself, 
and  is  not  merely  critical  in  relation  to  Catholicism, 
but  critical  simplicifer  —  critical  in  the  sense  in  which 
the  philosophy  of  Kant  is  critical.  The  principle  of  crit- 
icism is  innate  in  it  and  inseparable  from  it.  Its  own 
constructions,  whether  they  be  speculative  or  practi- 
cal, systems  of  theology  or  «\f  church-order  and  govern- 
ment, are  permanently  subject  to  criticism.  The 
process  never  ceases.  Protestantism  constructs  noth- 
ing  which   it   does   not   disintegrate   and   reconstruct. 


CATHOLIC  AND  PROTESTANT  53 

The  interpretations  of  its  faith  which  it  gives  are 
subject  to  incessant  revision :  the  intellectual  and  moral 
structures  which  it  rears  for  its  habitation  —  its  creeds 
and  confessions,  its  churches  and  institutes  —  can 
never  win  an  authority  which  enables  them  to  defy 
the  spirit  which  produced  them.  The  system  of 
thought  and  things  which  Protestantism  is  engaged  in 
building  is  a  system  which  is  perpetually  being  renewed 
in  all  its  parts."  *  This  admirably  states  also  the 
characteristic  tentativeness  of  Protestantism,  its  ^con- 
clusiveness, and  its  instability.  It  is  to  its  credit  that 
it  encourages  suspense  of  judgment,  reverent  agnosti- 
cism, unwillingness  to  dogmatize  and  be  wise  beyond 
what  is  written;  but  it  is  a  hampering  limitation  that 
it  often  shrinks  from  definite  conviction,  hesitates  to 
be  wise  even  within  the  limits  of  what  is  written,  and 
often  displays  the  temper  of  Jannes  and  Jambres,  "ever 
learning,  yet  never  able  to  come  to  a  knowledge  of  the 
truth." 

A  teacher  occupying  a  very  high  position  has  said 
that  our  "upward-pointing  spires"  are  like  interroga- 
tion-points, expressing  man's  irrepressible  queries  con- 
cerning God  and  the  world.  This  they  are;  but  they 
are  something  more.  They  are  also  affirmative  indices 
of  the  source  of  knowledge,  and  signs  also  of  definite 
answers  to  the  questioning  instincts  of  men.  The 
teacher  to  whom  I  have  referred  has  also  said:  "The 
Church  does  not  represent  a  structural  part  of  human- 
ity. It  represents  that  spiritual  part  which  does  not 
seek  expression  in  the  form  of  government  or  even  in 

1  Dr.  James  Denney  on  The  Constructive  Task  of  Protestantism 
in  the  Constructive  Quarterly,  No.  2,  pp.  213f. 


54  CATHOLIC  AND  PROTESTANT 

forms  of  society,  but  seeks  expression  in  its  search  for 
God,  in  its  search  for  the  ultimate  explanation  of  life, 
in  its  search  for  the  ultimate  fountains  of  the  human 
spirit.  The  things  that  are  outside  of  us  and  beyond 
our  control  and  higher  than  we  are,  are  the  things 
by  which  we  seek  to  measure  ourselves;  and  every 
church  is  a  sort  of  attempt  to  discover  a  standard." 
That  well  states  a  fact  and  is  a  good  Protestant 
utterance;  but  it  does  not  tell  the  whole  truth 
about  the  Church,  and  is  not  completely  Christian. 
Man's  gropings  after  God  are  necessary,  and  in  his  re- 
ligious associations  they  find  natural  expression.  The 
churches  do  represent  the  normal  "struggling  aims" 
upward  of  humanity.  But  to  state  this  alone  un- 
guardedly is  to  ignore  the  fact  that  Christianity  is  a 
revelation,  that  it  represents,  first  of  all,  not  the 
upward  struggles  of  men  but  the  downward  reaching 
of  God  to  assist  men  in  their  struggles.  It  is  Protes- 
tant to  think  that  "every  church  is  a  sort  of  an  attempt 
to  discover  a  standard":  but  it  is  Christian  to  think 
of  the  Church  established  by  God  as  "pillar  and  ground 
of  the  truth,"  disclosing  a  standard.  The  New  Testa- 
ment presentation  of  the  Church  emphasizes  the  very 
point  that  such  a  statement  as  that  cited  seems  to 
deny,  namely,  that  the  Church  represents  something 
normal  and  structural  in  humanity,  that  the  laws  of 
spiritual  life  are  analogous  to  laws  of  all  life,  and  that 
spiritual  truth  and  grace  are  gained  through  incorpora- 
tion into  spiritual  society.  The  religious  life  is  more 
than  search:  it  is  discovery.  It  is  more  than  asking 
of  questions:  it  is  receiving  of  answers.  Our  Lord 
bids  us  "Seek";  but  He  promises  that  we  "shall  find," 


CATHOLIC  AND  PROTESTANT  55 

that  to  our  persistent  knocking  the  doors  of  knowledge 
shall  be  opened.  Moreover,  what  comes  from  Him 
is  to  be  received  as  certain  and  final.  Christianity  is 
a  search  after  God,  as  earnest  a  search  as  the  world 
has  ever  seen :  but,  more  than  that,  it  is  the  manifesta- 
tion of  God  given  in  response  to  the  quest  of  faith.  It 
is  an  unsatisfactory  statement  of  the  substance  of  the 
Christian  life  to  say  of  all  Christians,  "They  are  look- 
ing for  a  foothold,  for  some  firm  ground  of  faith  on 
which  to  walk."  This  has  been  true  of  all  of  them, 
but  fortunately  it  is  also  true  that  many  of  them  have 
found  what  they  were  looking  for,  and  have  come  to 
share  the  confidence  in  the  foundation  of  faith  in 
Christ  expressed  by  such  discoverers  of  truth  as  St. 
Paul  and  St.  John. 

In  imperfect  apprehension  of  the  Church-principle 
may  be  seen  one  of  the  chief  limitations  of  Protestant- 
ism. In  its  extreme  forms  it  wholly  denies  this,  since 
it  assumes  the  formation  of  the  Church  from  below. 
Those  who  have  wished  to  start  Christianity  afresh, 
whether  expressly  undertaking  a  task  of  invention, 
or  claiming  merely  to  have  made  rediscoveries,  have 
been  concerned  not  with  perpetuation  of  a  Church 
existent  and  of  transcendent  authority,  but  with  the 
formation  of  new  churches  and  with  self-determined 
plans  of  individual  salvation,  wholly  independent  of 
any  church  other  than  an  aggregation  for  convenience 
of  like-minded  units.  The  negative  tendency  invari- 
ably halts  short  of  the  whole  truth.  Its  opposition  to 
authority,  its  restiveness  at  the  mystical  and  super- 
natural, its  content  with  the  commonplace,  are  all 
signs  of  failure  to  rise  to  the  level  of  the  highest  attain- 


56  CATHOLIC  AND  PROTESTANT 

ment.  Its  strength  lies  in  the  safeguarding  of  every 
form  of  individual  right,  in  efforts  to  uplift  the  down- 
trodden, in  the  insistence  on  healthy  happiness  for 
humanity,  in  the  exhibition  of  good  practical  common- 
sense.  But  there  are  things  calling  for  higher  faculties 
than  those  of  common  sense;  and  man  is  not  wholly 
himself  if  he  fails  to  use  them.  It  is  a  weakness  in 
any  movement  that  it  should  disparage  social  facts, 
rights,  and  responsibilities,  and  that  it  should  tend  to 
throw  down  whatever  transcends  mediocrity.  To  a 
great  extent  Protestant  influences  have  tended  toward 
these  things.  Any  one  who  takes  broad  views  of 
human  life  and  history  can  not  fail  to  see,  in  reviewing 
the  whole  course  of  Protestant  development,  that, 
with  positive  strength  which  the  world  could  not 
afford  to  lose,  there  have  been  elements  of  weakness, 
suppressions  and  distortions  of  truth,  of  which  the 
world  cannot  too  soon  get  rid. 


Ill 

The  two  conceptions,  Catholic  and  Protestant,  are 
not  necessarily  mutually  exclusive.  So  far  as  Protes- 
tant stands  for  religious  individualism  and  Catholic 
for  the  corporate  conception  of  salvation,  there  is  no 
contradiction:  the  ideas  explain  and  supplement  each 
other.  So  far  as  Protestant  stands  for  freedom  of 
personal  sonship,  and  Catholic  for  the  spiritual  author- 
ity of  the  Church,  there  is  no  contradiction:  each 
conception  balances  and  interprets  the  other.  Cathol- 
icism does  not  deny  individual  responsibility;  and 
Protestantism  need  not  fail  to  see  that  the  individual 


CATHOLIC  AND  PROTESTANT  57 

only  realizes  himself  through  society.  There  ought 
to  be  no  hesitation  about  submission  to  authority, 
if  authority  represent  our  Lord,  since  submission  to 
Him  means  freedom.  So  far  as  Catholic  stands  for 
the  Divine  and  insistence  on  thinking  of  those  things 
which  are  above,  there  is  no  inconsistency  with  the 
Protestant  stand  for  the  human  and  close  attention 
to  the  actual  things  and  conditions  of  earth.  Both 
types  of  thought  have  shown  tendencies  to  exaggera- 
tion; and  history  gives  many  stern  warnings.  There 
have  been  confusions  of  Divine  authority  with  eccle- 
siastical tyranny,  identifications  of  Divine  sovereignty 
with  the  kingdoms  of  this  world,  unwarranted  claims  to 
infallibility  by  individuals,  unmindful  that  the  promise 
of  guidance  into  all  truth  was  made  to  the  Church  as 
a  whole.  All  these  have  disguised  the  Catholic  con- 
ception and  have  made  the  Catholic  name  to  many 
minds  a  synonym  for  tyranny  and  superstition.  On 
the  other  hand,  Protestantism  has  too  often  meant  an- 
archy, the  disintegration  of  the  Church,  an  indifference, 
if  not  hostility,  to  the  supernatural,  which  has  given 
a  great  impulse  to  unbelief.  In  all  Protestant  coun- 
tries there  have  been  driftings  away  from  New  Testa- 
ment Christianity,  tendencies  to  conceive  only  a  remote 
humanitarian  Christ,  at  times  a  general  tendency  to 
scepticism.  Protestantism  has  too  often  been  a  sort 
of  apotheosis  of  selfishness,  and  instead  of  represent- 
ing the  spiritual  liberty  of  Paul  the  Apostle,  has  been 
little  more  than  the  chronic  kicking  against  pricks  of 
Saul  the  persecutor.  Reaction  has  now  set  in,  and  the 
common  appeal  for  the  Living  Church  of  the  Living 
Christ  indicates  that  the  world  is  fast  outgrowing  the 


58        CATHOLIC  AND  PROTESTANT 

cramping  tendencies  of  a  movement  which  would  keep 
minds  and  souls  groping  at  low  levels.  Carefully  con- 
sidered on  the  positive  side,  it  may  be  demonstrated 
that  the  things  which  Protestants  and  Catholics 
supremely  value  are  merely  different  sides  of  the  same 
truth :  yet  there  is  an  antithesis  between  the  two  which 
ought  not  to  be  ignored.  If  one  stands  for  the  sacra- 
mental conception  of  the  Church  and  life,  and  the 
other  for  the  denial  of  these,  the  one  for  the  Kingship 
of  the  ascended  Christ,  the  other  for  the  denial  of  every 
authority  except  that  of  private  judgment,  there  is  a 
contradiction  between  which  individuals  and  churches 
must  definitely  choose.  And  there  is  often  this  sharp 
alternative. 

The  difference  between  Catholicism  and  Protestant- 
ism is  best  seen  in  their  respective  presentations  of 
the  Church.  In  the  main  it  may  be  said  that  Cathol- 
icism stands  for  the  Divine  side,  Protestantism  for 
the  human.1  The  Church  is  a  Sacrament  and  has 
both  sides.  The  outward  and  visible  human  society 
is  the  means  of  the  inward  and  spiritual  activities  of 
the  ascended  Christ.  The  two  conceptions  approach 
the  Church  from  opposite  sides.  Each  has  hold  of 
an  essential  truth.  Each  supplements  the  other  and 
needs  the  other  to  protect  itself.  The  antithesis  serves 
to  demonstrate  the  Church's  twofold,  sacramental  char- 

1  This  distinction  may  seem  very  arbitrary.  It  is  plainly  not  in 
accord  with  many  facts.  Luther  was  more  concerned  for  spiritual 
things  in  1519  than  Leo  X.  So-called  Catholics  have  often  been 
the  worst  of  worldlings:  Protestants  have  often  been  the  most 
spiritual  of  mystics.  Yet  as  a  generalization  concerning  theories 
and  tendencies  the  distinction  may  stand. 


CATHOLIC  AND  PROTESTANT  59 

acter.  There  has  been,  and  always  may  be,  mystical 
union  between  men  and  God,  actual  contact  of  the 
earthly  and  the  eternal.  The  Church  is  the  meeting- 
point  of  the  two. 

There  is  only  one  place  in  the  Bible  which  narrates 
an  attempt  to  reach  Heaven  and  discover  God  by 
efforts  made  merely  from  below,  such  as  would  corres- 
pond to  purely  humanitarian  conceptions  of  the  Church. 
An  effort  was  once  made  on  purely  individualistic  and 
congregational  principles;  and  it  failed.  "And  they 
said,  Go  to,  let  us  build  a  city  and  a  tower,  whose  top 
may  reach  unto  heaven,  and  let  us  make  a  name,  lest 
we  be  scattered  abroad  upon  the  face  of  the  whole 
earth.  And  the  Lord  came  down  to  see  the  city  and 
the  tower  which  the  children  of  men  builded.  And 
the  Lord  said,  Behold,  the  people  is  one,  and  they  have 
all  one  language,  and  this  they  begin  to  do:  and  now 
nothing  will  be  restrained  from  them  which  they  have 
imagined  to  do.  Go  to,  let  us  go  down,  and  there 
confound  their  language,  that  they  may  no  more  under- 
stand one  another's  speech.  So  the  Lord  scattered 
them  abroad  from  thence  upon  the  face  of  the  whole 
earth;  and  they  left  off  to  build  the  city.  Therefore 
is  the  name  of  it  called  Babel,  because  the  Lord  did 
there  confound  the  language  of  all  the  earth;  and 
from  thence  did  the  Lord  scatter  them  abroad  upon 
the  face  of  all  the  earth."1  "Our  unhappy  divisions" 
are  the  modern  counterpart  of  Babel;  and  they  are 
largely  due  to  the  same  cause.  A  tower  to  reach 
Heaven  cannot  be  built  up  by  men  from  below; 
and  the  attempt  by  men  to  discover  a  "common 
N  x  Gen.  xi:  4-9. 


60  CATHOLIC  AND  PROTESTANT 

Christianity"  or  invent  a  "new  theology"  must  always 
result  in  confounding  of  language  —  any  men,  many 
minds.  Religious  individualism  can  never  arrive  at 
unity  of  truth. 

The  Scriptural  description  of  the  City  of  God 
represents  the  converse  of  this.  It  is  not  reared  from 
below,  but  descends  from  above.  "And  there  came 
one  of  the  seven  angels  .  .  .  and  talked  with  me  say- 
ing, Come  hither,  I  will  show  thee  the  Bride,  the 
Lamb's  Wife.  And  he  carried  me  away  in  spirit  to  a 
great  and  high  mountain,  and  shewed  me  that  great 
city,  the  holy  Jerusalem,  descending  out  of  heaven 
from  God,  having  the  glory  of  God;  and  her  light  was 
like  unto  a  stone  most  precious,  even  like  a  jasper 
stone,  clear  as  crystal.  .  .  .  And  I  saw  no  temple 
therein:  for  the  Lord  God  Almighty  and  the  Lamb 
are  the  temple  of  it.  And  the  City  had  no  need  of  the 
sun,  neither  of  the  moon,  to  shine  in  it :  for  the  glory  of 
God  did  lighten  it,  and  the  Lamb  is  the  light  thereof. 
And  the  nations  of  them  that  are  saved  shall  walk  in 
the  light  of  it :  and  the  kings  of  the  earth  do  bring  their 
glory  and  honour  into  it.  And  the  gates  of  it  shall 
not  be  shut  at  all  by  day:  for  there  shall  be  no  night 
there.  And  they  shall  bring  the  glory  and  honour  of 
the  nations  into  it.  And  there  shall  in  no  wise  enter 
into  it  anything  that  defileth,  neither  whatsoever 
worketh  abomination,  or  maketh  a  lie:  but  they  that 
are  written  in  the  Lamb's  book  of  life."1  That  is 
the  description  of  the  Church  given  by  St.  John  the 
Divine;  and  the  principle  of  his  description  can  never 
be  ignored.  The  Church  has  its  origin,  its  light,  its 
1  Rev.  xxi:  9-11,  22-27. 


CATHOLIC  AND   PROTESTANT  61 

life,  from  God.  The  nations  and  the  kings  come  into 
it,  and,  as  inhabitants,  in  one  sense,  make  it  a  City; 
but  it  is  the  City  of  God  sent  down  for  men,  not  a 
city  or  temple  of  men  built  for  God.  It  is  open  to  all 
mankind.  "And  the  Spirit  and  the  Bride  say  Come. 
And  let  him  that  is  athirst  come.  And  whosoever 
will,  let  him  drink  of  the  water  of  life  freely."1 
^ev.  xxii:  17. 


SACRAMENTAL  CHARACTER 

The  sacramental  principle  which  underlies  the 
Christian  religion  gives  the  best  clue  to  the  interpreta- 
tion of  Christian  history.  It  has  been  considered  in 
its  bearings  on  intellectual  problems  as  determining 
laws  of  Christian  thought.  In  a  similar  way  it  may 
be  considered  in  its  effects  on  character.  It  is  common- 
place to  assert  that  the  Christian  life  is  sacramental; 
yet  apprehension  of  the  truth  always  opens  new  vistas 
of  thought  and  feeling.  The  Christian  secret  is  that 
life  may  be  shared  with  our  Lord.  The  highest  thing 
in  human  experience,  that  interaction  of  personal 
force,  that  actual  sharing  of  life  in  all  its  phases  with 
another,  which  we  call  love,  is  raised  to  a  point  beyond 
itself  when  we  learn  that  what  is  possible  between 
man  and  man  is  possible  also  between  man  and  God. 
Successive  generations  of  the  faithful  have  found  by 
experiment  that  there  is  literal  possibility  of  sharing 
life  with  our  Lord.  By  accepting  His  yoke,  we  may 
have  Him  for  Companion  and  Workfellow.  A  yoke 
is  made  for  two  oxen:  and  our  Lord's  injunction  to 
take  His  yoke  upon  us  is  not  merely  an  appeal  to  bear 
a  burden,  but  an  offer  of  assistance.  To  bear  His 
yoke  means  merely  to  harness  ourselves  for  the  heavy 
dragging  of  life  in  such  a  way  as  to  have  Him  bear 
half  our  burden  and  do  half  our  work.  He  is  our  true 
Yokefellow;  and  with  Him  for  weal  or  woe  we  go 
shares.     If  human  nature,  created  in  the  image  of  God, 


SACRAMENTAL  CHARACTER  63 

is  itself  a  sacrament,  its  ideal  activity  is  twofold.  The 
ideal  man  opens  his  life  Godward  and  manward;  and 
each  form  of  activity  increases  power  for  the  other. 
He  that  loveth  God  will  love  his  brother  also:  and  he 
that  loveth  his  brother  whom  he  hath  seen  is  in  the 
surest  way  of  loving  God  Whom  he  hath  not  seen. 

There  are  possibilities  of  abnormal,  partial  develop- 
ment. Some  men  give  themselves  wholly  to  con- 
templation; monks  of  Mount  Athos  intent  on  seeing 
"the  uncreated  light,'*  Buddhists  seeking  to  attain 
Nirvana  by  extinction  of  the  human  and  earthly, 
careworn  souls,  utterly  weary  of  earth,  who  have 
tried  to  forget  all  about  it  and  live  in  imagination  in  a 
state  which  has  not  yet  arrived.  These  make  the 
mistake  of  thinking  that  absorption  in  the  Divine  life 
evacuates  human  life  of  meaning,  or  that  mere  impa- 
tient, impractical  "living  in  the  clouds"  is  equivalent 
to  living  "with  Christ  in  heavenly  places."  There  are 
others  who  think  that  the  one  duty  is  to  be  busy  with 
things  of  earth.     This  is  plausible  and  practical. 

"Do  the  duty  nearest, 
Though  it's  dull  at  whiles, 
Helping  when  you  meet  them, 
Lame  dogs  over  stiles." 

There  is  no  doubt  of  the  primary  importance  of  doing 
with  might  the  task  nearest  one's  hand.  But  it  is  a 
mistake  to  think  only  of  things  of  earth,  to  be  cumbered 
with  cares,  to  keep  eyes  always  down,  and  to  plod  along 
on  low  levels.  Labor  are  est  or  are  is  true  both  ways. 
Prayer  is  work,  the  highest  and  most  useful  work  man 
can  do :  and  work  is  prayer,  the  most  sincere  form  by 
which  aspiration  can  express  itself.     Yet  it  is  wrong 


64  SACRAMENTAL  CHARACTER 

to  assume  either  that  prayer  is  the  only  work  we  have 
to  perform,  or  that  the  place  of  prayer  in  worship  may 
be  taken  by  daily  drudgery.  The  highest  life  con- 
sists not  of  religious  abstraction  alone,  nor  of  absorp- 
tion in  labor,  but  in  their  combination.  In  the 
highest  examples  of  Christian  manhood  and  woman- 
hood the  two  things  go  together.  Height  of  aspira- 
tion and  breadth  of  sympathy  mutually  magnify. 
The  more  intense  the  mystical  devotion  to  God,  the 
more  keen,  penetrating,  and  painstaking  the  faculties 
for  service:  the  more  varied  the  benevolent  activities, 
the  more  alive  to  the  love  of  God.  Expenditure  of 
energy  either  way  seems  to  give  greater  power  for  the 
other  form  of  activity.  We  can  touch  God,  and  touch 
men,  directly;  yet  we  touch  God  most  closely  through 
men,  and  through  God  as  medium  get  closest  to  men's 
hearts. 

The  twofold  aspect  of  duty  resembles  God's  twofold 
relation  to  the  world.  God  is  above  the  world  and 
beyond  it.  He  created  it,  and  it  cannot  contain  His 
infinity.  He  is  transcendent.  Yet  He  is  in  all  parts 
of  it  and  sustains  it.  He  is  also  immanent.  Tran- 
scendence and  immanence  pertain  equally  to  the 
Godhead.  It  may  be  said  that  man  has  duties  of  tran- 
scendence and  of  immanence.  He  is  bound  for  the  sake 
of  himself  and  of  the  work  which  he  has  to  do,  at  times 
to  get  above  the  world  and  out  of  it :  but  for  the  same 
reasons  he  must  be  ever  ready  to  be  close  to  it  and  in 
the  thick  of  its  struggles.  He  must  ascend  the  Mount 
of  Transfiguration,  to  be  delivered  from  the  disquietude 
of  this  world  and  to  behold  the  King  in  His  beauty; 
but  he  must  keep  his  faith  when  he  descends  the  Mount 


SACRAMENTAL  CHARACTER  65 

to  cast  out  devils  that  await  him  at  its  foot.  The 
two  commandments  which  comprise  the  substance  of 
all  the  injunctions  of  the  Law  and  all  the  aspirations 
of  Psalmists  and  Prophets,  represent  the  ethical  sacra- 
ment, the  complementary  sides  of  duty,  human  and 
Divine.     The  true  Christian  is  like  the  Skylark. 

"Ethereal  Minstrel!     Pilgrim  of  the  sky! 
Dost  thou  despise  the  earth  where  cares  abound? 
Or,  while  the  wings  aspire,  are  heart  and  eye 
Both  with  thy  nest  upon  the  dewy  ground? 
Thy  nest  which  thou  canst  drop  into  at  will, 
Those  quivering  wings  composed,  that  music  still! 

"To  the  last  point  of  vision,  and  beyond, 
Mount,  daring  Warbler!  that  love-prompted  strain 
('Twixt  thee  and  thine  a  never-failing  bond) 
Thrills  not  the  less  the  bosom  of  the  plain: 
Yet  mightst  thou  seem,  proud  privilege!  to  sing 
All  independent  of  the  leafy  spring. 

"Leave  to  the  Nightingale  her  shady  wood, 
A  privacy  of  glorious  light  is  thine: 
Whence  thou  dost  pour  upon  the  world  a  flood 
Of  harmony,  with  instinct  more  divine: 
Type  of  the  wise  who  soar,  but  never  roam, 
True  to  the  kindred  points  of  Heaven  and  Home."  x 

Character  is  better  described  by  personal  illustra- 
tion than  by  verbal  outline.  The  lives  of  all  the 
saints  show  well  the  ethical  counterpoise  of  which  we 
have  been  thinking.  St.  Paul  was  a  mystic,  "caught 
up"  at  times  "to  the  third  heaven,"  "unto  paradise, 
where  he  heard  unspeakable  words  which  it  is  not 
lawful  for  a  man  to  utter";  yet  he  was  a  man  with 
1  Wordsworth 
5 


66  SACRAMENTAL  CHARACTER 

unusual  grip  of  personal  and  practical  detail.  Simi- 
larly, St.  John  was  possessed  by  the  two  thoughts  that 
"God  is  Light"  and  "God  is  Love,"  but  absorbed  in 
them  only  so  that  he  saw  the  necessity  of  "walking  in 
the  light"  and  of  "loving  one  another."  The  best 
Marthas  have  found  plenty  of  time  to  sit  at  Jesus' 
feet,  and  the  best  Marys  to  do  their  full  share  of  the 
housework.  The  noblest  characters  have  had  eyes 
firm-fixed  on  heaven,  yet  have  kept  feet  firm-planted 
on  earth.  Let  me  speak  of  two  lives,  completely 
surrendered  to  the  service  of  God,  and  yet  singularly 
responsive  to  the  common  claims  of  men. 

One  of  the  most  winsome  examples  of  sacramental 
character  is  St.  Athanasius.  Of  all  the  heroes  of  faith, 
there  is  none  that  can  better  stand  tests.  As  Richard 
Hooker  quaintly  says  of  him,  "Only  in  Athanasius 
there  was  nothing  observed  throughout  the  course 
of  that  long  tragedy,  other  than  such  as  very  well 
became  a  wise  man  to  do  and  a  righteous  to  suffer. 
So  that  this  was  the  plain  condition  of  those  times: 
all  the  world  against  Athanasius,  and  Athanasius 
against  it:  half  a  hundred  years  spent  in  doubtful 
trial  which  of  the  two  in  the  end  would  prevail,  the 
side  that  had  all,  or  the  side  which  had  no  friend  but 
God  and  death,  the  One  the  defender  of  his  innocency, 
the  other,  the  finisher  of  all  his  troubles."  l  He  is 
a  colossal  figure  in  history,  as  Harnack  describes 
him,  "standing  like  a  rock  in  the  sea";  yet  there 
is  always  a  delicacy  and  grace  about  him,  so  that  it 
does  not  seem  incongruous  to  remember  that  he  was 
"one  of  the  little  great  men  of  history,"  or  to  imagine 
1  Hooker:  Ecclesiastical  Polity,  V:    xlii:    5. 


SACRAMENTAL  CHARACTER  67 

"That  slight  form  and  beauteous  grace 
Of  our  true  Father  Athanase."  x 

He  was  a  typical  Alexandrian,  preeminently  a  theolo- 
gian, intent  on  penetrating  Divine  truth,  conscious 
always  of  life's  eternal  context.  He  had  that  quality 
of  intellectual  directness  which  goes  with  clarity  of 
spiritual  vision.  Though  but  a  young  man  when  the 
Arian  controversy  broke,  his  eagle  eye  first  detected 
the  real  issue.  Through  all  superficial  details  and 
evasive  sophistries  he  saw  the  point  at  stake,  that 
Arius  would  not  admit  that  Jesus  Christ  is  really 
God;  that  the  whole  Christian  system  is  based  on 
the  assumption  that  He  is;  and  that  this  truth  is  the 
heart  of  revelation.  By  force  of  circumstances,  in 
spite  of  his  comparative  youth,  he  became  foremost 
champion  of  the  doctrine  expressed  in  the  Nicene 
Creed.  In  defense  of  this  he  spent  a  long  life  of  hard- 
ship: injustice,  slander,  exile,  prolonged  uncertainty, 
incessant  discomfort,  went  to  form  his  lot.  All  his 
life  was  spent  in  controversy,  in  the  defense  of  one 
cause,  one  position.  The  circumstances  of  the  life 
were  such  as  almost  inevitably  force  a  man  to  encase 
himself  in  a  shell  of  hardness,  induce  intellectual 
rigidity,  intensify  obstinacy,  and  make  a  man  narrow, 
even  if  not  bitter.  A  man  who  has  to  fight  a  battle 
can  think  of  little  else,  and  judges  men  as  they  help  or 
hinder  him  in  the  one  thing  to  which  he  has  devoted 
himself.  Controversy  tends  to  confine  thought  and 
sympathy  within  the  narrow  range  of  one  idea.  It 
would  not  have  been  strange  if  Athanasius,  champion 

1  Bright:    "First  Exile  of  St.  Athanasius"  in  Hymns  and  Other 
Verses.     Et  passim. 


68  SACRAMENTAL  CHARACTER 

of  a  theological  doctrine  and  for  fifty  years  perpetual 
confessor  for  his  faith,  had  been  able  to  think  of  noth- 
ing but  the  one  main  object  of  his  life.  Nothing  of 
the  kind.  Both  in  regard  to  principles  and  persons 
he  always  showed  poise  and  patience.  He  could  see 
other  people's  points  of  view,  was  not  tenacious  of 
words  if  the  things  they  stood  for  were  protected,  could 
see  the  unfairnesses  and  exaggerations  of  his  friends, 
and  never  seemed  to  lose  a  serenity  and  sweetness 
which  came  of  his  viewing  the  turmoils  of  earth  from 
the  standpoint  of  heavenly  calm.  Attacks  on  himself 
never  made  him  fretful  or  bitter. 

"He  saw  the  mark  their  hatred  sought; 
They  struck  through  him  at  what  he  taught." 

The  one  thing  he  cared  for  was  religion:  his  whole  life 
was  given  to  defense  of  our  Lord's  Divinity,  but  he 
was  not  merely  concerned  for  a  dogma  or  system. 
The  heart  of  his  religion  was  personal  devotion  to  our 
Lord.  His  concern  for  truth  was  not  for  the  triumph 
of  a  position  or  party,  but  for  the  value  of  the  truth 
to  the  souls  of  those  under  his  care. 

"  'Twas  not  the  mere  polemic  zeal 

For  Council  or  for  Creed: 
For  both  he  set  his  face  like  steel 

To  serve  the  Church's  need; 
But  both  were  loved  for  His  dear  sake, 
Whose  rights  were  in  that  strife  at  stake." 

As  Theologian,  as  Bishop,  as  Doctor  of  the  Church, 
as  Confessor,  as  Champion  of  the  Faith,  in  every  duty 
and  condition  which  put  him  into  relation  to  God, 
he  seemed  to  show  measures  of  Divine  patience,  jus- 


SACRAMENTAL  CHARACTER  69 

tice,  and  compassion.  Threats  and  danger  did  not 
deprive  him  of  calmness.  "I  shall  withdraw  for  a 
time  until  the  tyranny  be  overpast,"  was  all  he  said 
after  one  scene  of  violence  against  him  and  his  people. 
"It  is  a  little  cloud  and  will  soon  pass,"  was  his  com- 
ment when  for  a  fourth  time  he  was  driven  into  exile. 

"He,  sweetly  strong,  and  strongly  great, 
Knew  how  to  strive  and  how  to  wait." 

The  poise  of  his  public  life  had  its  counterpart  in 
his  private  relations.  Gregory  Nazianzen  notes  that 
he  was  "quick  in  sympathy,  pleasant  in  conversation, 
and  still  more  pleasant  in  temper."  He  was  "helpful 
to  all  Christians  of  every  class  and  age,  especially  the 
poor,"  very  adaptable,  "able  to  keep  on  a  level  with 
commonplace  minds,  yet  to  soar  high  above  the  more 
aspiring."1  He  was  very  affectionate  in  all  personal 
relations,  sensitive  —  which  made  his  tenacity  the 
more  remarkable,  endowed  always  with  a  quaint  and 
quiet  humor,  a  remarkable  example  of  Pauline  versa- 
tility in  being  "all  things  to  all  men." 

"One  image,  stamped  on  heart  and  mind, 
To  make,  inform,  direct, 
Those  richly- varied  powers  combined 

For  one  supreme  effect; 
And  'all  in  all'  he  well  might  be, 
Who  in  that  Light  would  all  things  see." 

To  him  in  a  supreme  degree  was  given  "grace  by  the 
confession  of  a  true  faith  to  acknowledge  the  glory 
of  the  eternal  Trinity,  and  in  the  power  of  the  Divine 
Majesty  to  worship  the  Unity";  and  with  this  faith 
1  Gregory  Nazianzen:  Panegyric  on  Athanasius. 


70  SACRAMENTAL  CHARACTER 

was  he  given  power  in  an  especial  degree  to  minister 
to  "all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men." 

St.  Athanasius  was  a  theologian.  Let  us  take  from 
our  own  time  the  example  of  an  ecclesiastic.  It  is  only 
two  years  since  the  Church  of  England  lost  one  of  the 
most  gifted  of  its  Bishops,  William  Edward  Collins, 
Bishop  of  Gibraltar.  Among  men  of  our  Communion, 
Bishop  Collins  was  noted  for  his  clearness  of  thought, 
his  wide  knowledge  as  one  of  the  best-trained  historical 
scholars  of  the  English  Church,  his  sense  of  theological 
proportion,  and  his  powers  of  ready  application.  He 
made  a  deep  impression  on  the  English  Church  and 
on  our  own  people  at  the  Pan-Anglican  Congress  of 
1908.  As  Bishop  of  Gibraltar  he  had  charge  of  all 
the  English  chapels  and  colonies  of  English  people  in 
the  countries  bordering  the  Mediterranean  Sea.  This 
brought  him  in  touch  with  peoples  and  prelates  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  and  Eastern  Orthodox  Churches  and 
gave  him  a  varied  experience  of  the  Christian  world 
of  today.  With  unusual  knowledge  of  past  and  pres- 
ent he  had  developed  very  highly  the  ecclesiastical 
sense.  Probably  no  Anglican  Churchman  had  more 
direct  knowledge  of  a  great  number  of  ecclesiastical 
affairs  than  Bishop  Collins.  His  life  was  given  in  a 
unique  way  to  "the  care  of  all  the  churches."  He  was 
a  man  of  saintly  life,  and  came  to  have  that  trans- 
parent look  of  the  Spirit  shining  through  matter  of 
fine-spun  texture,  which  is  given  to  some  faces.  In 
a  Spanish  Cathedral,  a  crowd  who  saw  his  "wonderful 
face"  thronged  to  kiss  his  hand,  although  they  knew 
before  he  told  them  that  he  was  "the  English  Cathol- 
icus."     All  who  knew  him  recognized  him  as  one  of 


SACRAMENTAL  CHARACTER  71 

the  most  entirely  devoted  men  of  the  Church  of  our 
own  day. 

And  with  this  went  wonderful  capacity  for  human 
interests  and  sympathies.  He  did  heroic  work  in  the 
rescue  and  care  of  sufferers  from  the  earthquake  at 
Messina;  he  himself  anointed  the  sores  of  a  crowd  of 
Russian  pilgrims  on  a  tramp-steamer  of  the  Black 
Sea,  sufferers,  it  turned  out,  from  confluent  small-pox. 
With  the  simplicity  of  real  greatness  he  had  a  perfect 
genius  for  children.  Here  is  a  characteristic  reference, 
relating  to  the  time  immediately  after  the  death  of 
his  wife. 

"But  it  wasn't  Judith  only  the  Bishop  thought  for.  He  worked 
hour  after  hour  upon  masses  of  papers  and  letters;  but  his  idea  of 
rest  was  helping  other  people.  He  taught  Doris  about  poetry, 
talked  to  'his  own  little  daughter  Tita,'  as  he  called  our  second  girl, 
whom  he  had  confirmed,  about  all  her  hopes  and  dearest  dreams; 
and  when  our  subaltern  son  arrived  from  India,  the  Bishop  and  he 
were  talking  so  late  at  night  in  his  room,  that  I  had  to  sit  up  to  see 
that  they  really  did  go  to  bed  at  last.  I  had  not  thought  that  any 
human  being  could  be  so  heart-broken,  so  newly  bereft  of  the  love 
of  his  life,  and  yet  throw  himself  so  marvellously  into  everyone  else's 
concerns."  x 

Concentration    on    ecclesiastical   problems   could    not 
crowd  out  personal  sympathies. 

So  in  every  noble  life.  The  higher  the  plane  along 
which  the  soul  habitually  moves,  the  greater  the  power 
of  particularity  in  the  discharge  of  homely  duties.  It 
is  only  contact  with  God  that  gives  capacity  for  widest 
and  closest  contact  with  men.  God  is  everywhere, 
knows  all,  and  loves  all.  Omniscience  and  omni- 
presence are  merely  formidable  synonyms  for  sympathy. 
1  Especially  p.  17. 


72  SACRAMENTAL  CHARACTER 

Human  sympathies  are  not  perfect  unless  they  gain 
tone  from  the  Divine  knowledge  and  compassion. 
That  life  only  is  the  best  expression  of  human  instinct 
and  human  capacity  which  has  most  completely 
surrendered  itself  to  God. 

St.  John  in  his  vision  of  God  throned  in  Heaven  saw 
before  the  throne  "a  sea,"  "a  sea  of  glass  like  unto 
crystal,"  symbol  of  purity,  peace,  the  utter  stillness 
of  reverent  worship  in  the  immediate  presence  of  God. 
It  may  suggest  to  us  that  the  sea  of  humanity,  with 
its  restlessness  and  tossings  under  influence  of  gusts 
and  storms,  may  be  purified  and  pacified  in  God's 
presence.  In  the  judgment  scene,  St.  John  saw  the 
same  sea  flashing  with  avenging  flames,  "a  sea  of 
glass  mingled  with  fire."  Anger  at  evil  is  an  aspect 
of  love:  zeal  for  the  Lord's  cause  is  a  consequence 
of  adoring  worship.  The  sea  before  the  Throne  not 
only  reflects  but  shares  the  action  of  the  Almighty. 
In  the  same  way  may  humanity  be  permeated  by  the 
flames  of  the  Spirit  as  the  glassy  sea  flashed  with  the 
fires  of  judgment.  The  contact  may  be  painful, 
purgatorial;   but  thence  comes  the  secret  of  activity. 

"The  keen  sanctity, 
Which  with  its  effluence,  like  a  glory,  clothes 
And  circles  round  the  Crucified,  has  seized 
And  scorched  and  shrivelled  it;  and  now  it  lies 
Passive  and  still  before  the  awful  Throne. 
O  happy,  suffering  soul,  for  it  is  safe, 
Consumed,  yet  quickened,  by  the  glance  of  God."  * 

1  Newman:  Dream  of  Gerontius. 


THE  IDEALS  OF  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY 

"And  the  City  had  no  need  of  the  sun,  neither  of  the  moon,  to 
shine  in  it:  for  the  glory  of  God  did  lighten  it,  and  the  Lamb  is 
the  light  thereof.  And  the  nations  of  them  that  are  saved  shall 
walk  in  the  light  of  it:  and  the  kings  of  the  earth  do  bring  their 
glory  and  honour  into  it.  And  the  gates  of  it  shall  not  be  shut 
at  all  by  day:  and  there  shall  be  no  night  there.  And  they  shall 
bring  the  glory  and  honour  of  the  nations  into  it."  Revelation 
xxi:  23-26. 

That  is  the  vision  and  prophecy  of  St.  John  the 
Divine  of  national  participation  in  the  life  of  the  City 
and  Kingdom  of  God.  Kings  and  nations  of  the  earth 
shall  bring  their  glories  and  honours  into  it;  and  in 
the  light  of  the  City,  which  emanates  from  God  only, 
shall  those  glories  and  honours  be  wonderfully  trans- 
figured. As  in  the  whole  process  of  salvation,  there 
is  to  be  both  giving  and  receiving.  The  kings  and 
nations,  like  their  prototypes  the  Magi  at  Bethlehem, 
are  to  bring  to  God  treasures  of  every  sort;  and  these, 
consecrated  by  God,  they  are  to  receive  back,  made 
effective  by  Him  for  every  good  purpose. 

The  history  of  the  Christian  centuries  has  brought 
many  illustrations  of  this.  Salvation  is  of  the  Jews; 
and  to  the  Jew  first  was  preached  the  message  of  salva- 
tion. Into  the  Church  they  brought  a  consciousness  of 
the  One  Holy  God  and  a  quickness  of  spiritual  faculty 
possessed  by  no  other  people  in  the  ancient  world. 


74  IDEALS  OF  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY 

God's  Son  incarnate  was  born  of  a  Jewish  mother. 
The  foundations  of  His  Church  were  laid  in  and  by 
Israelites  chosen  by  our  Lord  to  form  the  nucleus  of 
it.  "The  wall  of  the  City  had  twelve  foundations, 
and  in  them  the  names  of  the  twelve  Apostles  of  the 
Lamb."  The  beginnings  of  Christian  history  were 
made  of  what  was  given  to  God  by  the  Jews.  And 
in  those  Jews  who  gave  themselves  and  their  treasures 
unreservedly  to  the  service  of  God  as  revealed  in  Christ, 
were  realized  the  promises  made  to  their  fathers.  In 
Abraham's  seed  all  nations  of  the  earth  were  blessed, 
when  our  Lord  took  flesh  of  Abraham's  race,  and  when 
news  of  Him,  the  Gospel  of  salvation,  was  conveyed 
primarily  to  the  world  by  those  who  were  Abraham's 
sons.  The  ideal  Jewish  character  is  seen  in  the  Blessed 
Virgin,  in  St.  John,  in  St.  Peter,  in  Nathanael,  in  those 
who  received  the  Jewish  Messiah  when  He  came  to 
His  own  people  and  His  own  place.  The  best  of 
Judaism  and  the  best  of  Jewish  character  were 
brought  into  the  Church;  and  the  blessing  it  received 
brought  highest  glory  and  honour  to  the  race  which 
gave. 

Next,  the  Greeks,  in  whose  tongue  the  message  of 
salvation  made  its  way  to  the  world  at  large,  were 
summoned  to  bring  their  peculiar  honours  and  glories 
into  the  City  of  God.  They  had  highly  developed 
intellectual  powers,  accuracy  and  subtlety  of  thought 
and  expression,  a  fresh  and  wholesome  enjoyment  of 
physical  life,  aspirations  after  ideal  humanity,  the 
qualities  of  a  race  whose  crowning  product  was  philos- 
ophy. All  these  faculties  and  capacities  were  they 
called  to  use  in  our  Lord's  service.     From  the  keen 


IDEALS  OF  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY  75 

penetration  of  Greek  minds  came  the  Theology  of  the 
Church;  from  Greek  Councils  came  in  the  Greek 
language  the  classic  statements  of  the  Faith,  the 
Creeds;  from  Greek  sympathy  with  all  that  makes  the 
life  of  man  came  the  application  of  Christian  prin- 
ciple to  the  life  of  society.  To  men  of  Greek  speech 
after  the  men  of  Jewish  blood  the  world  owes  its  chief 
obligations  for  the  spread  of  the  Christian  religion. 
And  this  service  of  Christ  meant  freedom  for  the  Greek, 
the  fullest  opportunity  for  developing  the  special  quali- 
ties that  came  by  temperament  and  environment. 
In  the  Catechetical  School  of  Alexandria,  the  chief 
home  of  Christian  philosophy,  were  developed  men 
who  represented  not  only  the  highest  type  of  Christian 
intellect,  but  also  the  crown  of  specifically  Greek 
excellence.  Clement  of  Alexandria,  Athanasius,  and 
Cyril  are  types  not  only  of  Egyptian  Christianity, 
but  also  of  highly  spiritualized  Greek  thought,  men  in 
whom  may  be  seen  the  intellectual  qualities  of  St. 
Paul,  and  also  of  Plato.  The  Greeks  gave  much  to 
the  Church,  and  they  gained  more. 

The  Romans  also  in  that  first  age  received  a  call  to 
service,  and  after  a  time  there  was  Roman  response. 
The  men  of  the  Ruling  City  with  temper  and  gifts  for 
conquest,  organization,  amalgamation,  imperial  rule, 
who  had  imposed  a  type  and  tendency  on  many  of  the 
peoples  brought  under  their  sway,  were  bidden  to 
surrender  their  honours  and  their  glories  at  the  feet 
of  Christ.  Both  in  the  first  days  and  in  succeeding 
ages  the  Church  has  owed  much  to  the  Roman  genius 
for  practical  efficiency  on  a  large  scale,  the  faculty 
of  combining  for  working  purposes  heterogeneous  and 


76  IDEALS  OF  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY 

conflicting  elements.  The  Roman  genius  was  per- 
sonified in  the  greatest  of  the  Caesars;  and  the  finest 
specimens  of  the  Caesars  have  been  the  best  of  the 
Popes.  Leo  I,  Gregory  I,  and  Nicholas  I  were  not 
only  great  as  Christian  leaders  and  missionaries; 
they  were  also  fine  specimens  of  the  distinctively 
Roman  character.  Rome  gave  much  in  the  beginning, 
and  has  always  given  much,  to  the  Christian  cause, 
in  spite  of  inability  to  check  the  Roman  itch  for  con- 
quest, ambitious  to  subject  even  the  Kingdom  of 
Christ  to  the  City  of  the  Seven  Hills.  And  Rome 
gained  more  by  discovering  that  power  to  rule  can 
never  be  better  exerted  than  in  the  noblest  of  causes. 
The  Romans  were  men  of  force  and  ambition,  which, 
rightly  used,  are  good  things.  Force  may  be  most 
nobly  exerted,  and  ambition  most  nobly  realized,  in 
the  stress  and  strain  of  the  warfare  of  faith. 

In  the  Middle  Ages  the  Church  sought  to  gain  the 
races  of  northern  Europe,  Slavs,  Teutons,  and  Celts. 
Each  gave  and  each  gained  in  the  process.  The 
Teutonic  races,  from  which  most  of  us  derive  descent, 
had  great  possibilities,  though  at  the  time  of  their  con- 
version they  were  rude  and  uncouth.  They  possessed 
a  sturdy  individualism,  a  capacity  for  truth,  honesty 
and  purity,  stronger  than  in  the  older  nations  which 
excelled  them  in  social  gifts  and  cultivation  of  manners. 
The  Teuton  needed  the  Church  for  schooling  in  the 
use  of  his  special  faculties;  and  the  Church  needed  the 
Teuton  for  developing  the  highest  type  of  fearless 
sincerity  and  sturdy  righteousness.  In  every  age 
have  there  been  examples  of  the  way  in  which  the 
nations   have   brought   glory   into   the   City   of   God, 


IDEALS  OF  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY  77 

thereby   winning  for  themselves  the   truest  national 
glory.1 

But  the  City  of  God  does  not  yet  contain  all  the 
glory  which  the  nations  of  the  world  can  give;  nor  is 
it  yet  equipped  for  work  with  that  efficiency  which 
from  more  complete  absorption  of  the  nations  it  may 
gain.  We  must  hope  and  expect  that  great  good  will 
come  to  the  Christian  world  from  fuller  development 
of  the  great  reserve  force  of  the  Slavic  nations,  already 
pledged  to  the  service  of  Christ,  but  not  yet  effective 
to  their  possible  limits.  There  is  much  good  also  in 
store  for  the  Church  in  what  it  may  receive  from  the 
nations  of  the  East.  China  and  Japan  have  not  only 
much  to  gain  from  Christianity  for  the  working  out  of 
wonderful  national  destinies  but  they  have  much  to 
give  of  inestimable  value.  Christianity  is  at  present 
too  completely  dominated  by  Western  ideas;  it  needs 
to  redress  the  balance  by  what  may  come  from  the 
East.  In  every  phase  of  religious  life  there  is  some- 
thing sacramental  in  the  Divine-human  reciprocity. 
In  this  respect  national  conversion  is  analogous  to 
individual.  Our  Lord  bids  you,  and  bids  me,  "Come." 
He  needs  each  of  us.  Most  surely  we  need  Him.  He 
is  our  Life.  So  of  us  all  as  a  people.  We  Americans 
need  the  Living  Lord;  and  moreover  He  needs  us 
Americans. 


It  is  not  easy  to  define  or  describe  the  genius  of  the 
American  people,  for  the  reason  that,  like  the  melan- 
choly of  Jaques,  it  is  "compounded  of  many  simples.'* 

1  See  Chuech's  Gifts  of  Civilization. 


78  IDEALS  OF  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY 

But  that  which  causes  the  difficulty  suggests  also  the 
line  of  possible  definition.  The  American  people  is 
a  composite  race,  or  a  race  in  process  of  formation 
under  conditions  which  must  ultimately  produce  a 
highly  complex  compound.  That  which  chiefly  dis- 
tinguishes Americans  from  other  peoples  comes  from 
the  fact  that  the  United  States  is  a  meeting-point  and 
melting-pot  for  all  races  of  the  earth.  Each  of  these 
is  making  contribution  to  the  mixture  out  of  which 
the  American  character  and  civilization  will  sometime 
issue.  There  have  been  many  mixed  races  in  the  past, 
many  a  national  type  and  temperament  the  result 
of  fusion,  but  never  the  product  of  a  compound  so 
completely  cosmopolitan.  The  American  people  had 
its  beginnings  in  a  mixed  stock  from  northern  Europe. 
In  course  of  time,  the  south-European  peoples  have 
added  modifying  elements.  Now  the  nations  of 
Eastern  Europe  are  contributing  their  quota  of  Ameri- 
can citizens;  and  we  need  not  speculate  or  prophesy 
of  the  future  influence  in  America  of  the  peoples  of 
Asia  and  Africa,  for  that  influence  is  already  a  fact. 
Most  of  us  look  back  to  lines  of  ancestors  representing 
one  or  a  few  kindred  nations  of  Europe.  Not  many 
of  our  grandchildren  will  be  able  to  do  the  same.  A 
century  hence  the  confluent  strains  of  national  descent 
will  be  lost  in  the  main  stream  of  American  blood.  For 
good  or  ill,  our  characteristic  qualities  are,  and  are 
more  and  more  to  be,  those  of  a  composite  race. 

Certain  consequences  of  this  fact  may  be  specified 
as  constituting  salient,  if  not  the  most  peculiar,  quali- 
ties of  the  American  people.  In  the  first  place,  the 
fact  of  necessary  assimilation  has  produced  a  habit  or 


IDEALS  OF  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY  79 

quality  of  assimilativeness.  Already  is  there  forma- 
tion of  national  oneness  out  of  international  diversity, 
differing  from  such  combination  and  cooperation  of 
races  as  may  be  seen  elsewhere.  There  have  been 
many  examples  of  amalgamation  of  races  into  a  politi- 
cal unity.  Every  Empire  the  world  has  ever  seen  has 
represented  a  combination  of  races  in  which  there  has 
been  intermarriage,  reciprocal  influence  in  many  ways, 
modification  on  all  sides  of  racial  tendency.  In  the 
ancient  world,  the  Roman  Empire  represented  not 
only  political  unity  under  one  irresistible  controlling 
force,  but  a  union  of  peoples  which  perceptibly  modified 
distinctive  characteristics  of  all  peoples  who  formed  it. 
In  the  British  and  Russian  Empires  today  the  same 
thing  is  true.  Each  of  these  world-powers  consists  of 
an  amalgamation  of  nations  distinctly  affected  by 
their  imperial  associations.  The  Englishman,  no 
matter  how  pronounced  his  insularity,  is  in  many  ways 
affected  by  the  fact  that  the  Canadian,  the  Indian, 
the  Australian,  and  the  South  African  are  with  him 
fellow-subjects  of  King  George.  In  a  similar,  though 
less-marked,  degree,  is  the  Slav  or  Finn  in  Russia 
affected  by  his  political  connection  with  the  Mongols 
of  Tartary  and  Turkestan.  But  this  is  different  from 
the  situation  of  an  American  who  knows  that  he  has 
English,  German,  and  a  dash  of  French  blood  in  his 
veins,  and  that  it  is  likely  that  his  descendants  will  be 
also  part  Irish  and  part  Italian  with  chances  of  strains 
of  Negro  and  Japanese.  Whether  or  not  there  be 
actual  combination  of  bloods,  there  is  combination  of 
peoples  in  one  society  which  means  inevitable  influence 
on  the  educational  environment  of  each  and  all.     There 


80  IDEALS  OF  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY 

is,  and  is  to  be,  more  than  amalgamation,  more  than 
association;  there  is  to  be  assimilation  whereby  each 
becomes  like  the  others,  the  resulting  race-product 
having  qualities  from  all  the  nations  because  from  all 
it  has  constituent  ingredients.  This  necessitates 
power  of  appropriation.  Americans  have  developed 
that  quality  to  a  high  degree.  They  borrow,  adapt, 
and  use  from  all  quarters,  have  formed  the  eclectic 
habit,  are  always  on  the  lookout  for  useful  novelties, 
flatter  themselves  that  they  know  a  good  thing  when 
they  see  it  and  know  enough  to  use  it  when  discovered. 
Moreover,  they  can  not  only  adapt  new  things  to  old 
purposes,  but  can  adapt  old  selves  to  new  surround- 
ings. Assimilation,  appropriation,  adaptability,  are 
facts  of  common  experience  which  may  be  cited  as 
marks  of  the  national  character  in  process  of  formation. 
Americans  like  to  think  of  themselves  as  having  good 
practical  common-sense;  and  they  have  certainly  shown 
a  clever  inventiveness.  They  are  ambitious  to  gain 
and  to  keep  a  unique  place  in  the  world  by  being  effi- 
cient exponents  of  the  prevailing  spirit  of  the  age. 
They  show,  as  is  natural,  the  peculiar  marks  of  youth, 
its  freshness,  energy,  openness  to  new  impressions, 
good  spirits  in  the  pursuit  of  new  undertakings,  the 
vigor  and  enthusiasm  of  boyhood,  and  also  at  times 
boyish  crudeness,  impulsiveness,  and  unsteadiness. 
Youth  has  limitations  as  well  as  strengths;  but  the 
period  of  growth  and  elasticity  gives  best  chance  for 
developing  those  powers  which  can  control  the  future. 
As  youngest  of  the  nations  we  have  an  especial  call 
to  play  an  important  part  in  the  age  that  is  dawning. 
The  opportunity  is  obvious;    but  presence  of  oppor- 


IDEALS  OF  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY  81 

tunity  does  not  ensure  its  use.  We  need  to  remember 
that  though  "America  is  another  name  for  oppor- 
tunity," it  is  not  yet  another  name  for  assured  success. 
We  have  high  ambitions.  Very  well.  Let  us  culti- 
vate the  sober  steadiness  that  may  realize  them. 
W^e  wish  the  best  that  there  is  of  every  sort.  Let  us 
remember  that  the  best  that  is  includes  and  follows 
from  the  best  that  has  been,  and  that  only  by  making 
sure  of  that  can  we  be  confident  of  gaining  the  better 
that  will  be. 

The  national  character  must  affect  the  national 
religious  life,  and  determine  the  nature  of  national 
contribution  to  Christianity.  If  the  Americans  are 
to  bring  their  glories  and  honours  into  the  City  of  God, 
they  must  develop  an  assimilative,  appropriative, 
adaptable  Christianity  which  will  use  to  the  utmost 
the  opportunities  of  the  present  day.  If  they  are  ever 
able  to  dedicate  this  sort  of  character  to  God's  service, 
they  may  hope  for  a  Pauline  power  of  being  "  all  things 
to  all  men,"  and  ought  also  in  all  humility  to  hope  for 
likeness  to  Him  Who  was  the  Catholic  Man,  the  One 
in  Whom  were  summed  up  all  lines  of  human  develop- 
ment, Who,  mediator  between  God  and  man,  was  also 
mediator  and  bond  of  unity  between  men  themselves. 
"For  He  is  our  peace,  who  hath  made  both  one,  and 
hath  broken  down  the  middle  wall  of  partition  between 
us."  He  is  our  peace  because  He  became  one  of  us, 
one  with  all  of  us;  and  we  shall  share  His  power,  if 
out  of  experience  of  differing  types  and  lives  we  gain 
by  humble  submission  some  measures  of  Divine  jus- 
tice and  compassion.  It  would  be  a  great  thing  — 
and  it  is  not  an  impossible  thing  —  for  American 
6 


82  IDEALS  OF  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY 

Christianity  to  become  another  name  for  sympathy. 
We  have  the  opportunity  of  learning  to  be  sympathetic, 
because  we  have  the  cares,  conditions,  and  confusions 
of  the  Christian  world  close  about  us.  We  need  not 
be  told  of  them;  we  can  know  them  at  first  hand,  and 
out  of  this  experience  by  varied  contact  ought  to  come 
power  of  peacemaking  usefulness. 

II 

It  would  seem  inevitable  that  America  and  any 
form  of  American  Christianity  should  understand  and 
utilize  the  forces  of  the  Protestant  world.  The  influ- 
ences of  the  Reformation  period  have  affected  the 
social  and  political,  as  well  as  the  religious,  life  of  all 
the  western  nations;  but  as  belonging  wholly  to  the 
modern  period,  and  itself  the  product  of  those  influ- 
ences, no  country  is  more  obviously  under  obligation 
to  them  than  the  United  States.  It  owes  its  chief 
debts  to  men  of  Protestant  associations,  to  the  English 
Cavaliers  who  migrated  to  Virginia,  to  the  Puritans 
who  made  New  England,  to  the  Quakers  who  estab- 
lished Pennsylvania,  to  the  Dutch  who  made  New 
York,  to  Huguenots  in  north  and  south  alike,  in  more 
recent  times  to  the  Presbyterians,  Methodists,  and 
Baptists,  who  have  been  chief  missionaries  in  opening 
up  the  great  West.  Roman  Catholics  from  France 
and  Spain  had  an  important  share  in  the  discovery 
and  settlement  of  the  New  World;  but  their  influence 
counted  for  comparatively  little  in  the  formation  of 
peculiarly  American  institutions.  The  more  telling 
contributions  came  from  the  settlers  from  northern 


IDEALS  OF  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY  83 

Europe.  Ireland  and  Germany,  not  to  speak  of  the 
aggregate  of  South-European  peoples,  have  contributed 
to  the  nation  a  large  proportion  of  its  citizens;  but 
these  new  citizens  have  had  to  adapt  themselves  to 
a  government  and  society  in  forming  which  their  own 
people  had  comparatively  unimportant  shares.  For  the 
most  part  the  foundations  of  the  American  Common- 
wealth are  English.  The  Constitution  is  a  product 
of  principles  of  English  government  and  English  law; 
most  customs  represent  the  following  of  English  prec- 
edents, although  in  these  Scottish,  Dutch,  and  Irish 
influences  have  also  counted  for  much;  most  impor- 
tant of  all,  the  language  of  the  country,  and  hence 
its  literature,  is  English.  This  English  background 
of  American  life  is  a  Protestant  background.1  What 
must  be  described  as  Protestant  principles  and  influ- 
ences have  been  decisive  in  determining  our  national 
beginnings  and  the  course  of  our  national  develop- 
ment. It  would  seem  that  these  must  ever  hold  their 
place,  if  the  general  characteristics  of  our  civiliza- 
tion and  of  our  national  temperament  are  to  remain. 
We  can  never  cease  to  understand  the  motives  and 
value  of  that  to  which  America  owes  so  much.  It 
would  seem,  therefore,  that  American  Christianity  must 
allow  for,  appreciate,  and  adopt  whatever  is  true,  and 
therefore  permanent,  in  Protestantism.  It  must  ever 
show  those  special  aspects  of  Christian  truth  which 

1  Nothing  said  here  is  inconsistent  with  recognizing  the  Catholic 
position  of  the  English  Church,  although  it  is  intended  to  imply 
the  distinctly  Protestant  elements  in  that  Church.  The  English 
Bible  with  all  its  formative  influence  in  America,  represents  the 
working  of  Protestant  influences  in  the  Catholic  Church  of  England. 


84  IDEALS  OF  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY 

it  has  been  the  function  of  Protestantism  to  empha- 
size. Whatever  be  the  changes  of  the  future,  whereby 
what  belongs  merely  to  the  last  three  centuries  will 
sink  into  its  place  of  due  subordination  to  what 
belongs  to  the  greater  past  and  to  succeeding  times, 
the  mark  of  those  centuries  has  been  made  on  this 
country  in  a  way  which  is  indelible.  Positive  prin- 
ciples of  any  movement  survive  long  after  the  dis- 
appearance of  negations.  It  is  the  positive  side  of 
Protestantism  which  deserves  to  survive  and  will  sur- 
vive; and  this  country  is  one  of  the  places  where  that 
survival  is  most  certain. 

American  religious  life  will  show  that  individuality, 
that  spiritual  freedom,  which  is  the  most  characteris- 
tic thing  in  Protestantism.  Individuality  and  freedom 
are  as  old  as  the  faith  itself,  were  made  explicit  in  St. 
Paul  and  never  wholly  obscured;  but  emphasis  of 
these  truths  in  modern  times  has  been  so  especially 
the  work  of  Protestantism,  that  they  may  be  assigned 
as  special  ground  for  distinction.  It  is  inconceivable 
that  with  its  background  of  Protestant  association 
American  Christianity  can  ever  fail  to  allow  due  recog- 
nition of  the  principle  of  individualism,  or  that  any 
body  of  American  Christians  should  wish  to  ignore 
it.  There  is  striking  illustration  of  this  in  the  Roman 
Catholics  of  America.  They  have  conceptions  of 
spiritual  liberty,  of  individual  freedom  in  the  Church, 
of  individual  responsibility,  which  differentiate  them 
from  their  coreligionists  in  other  countries.  "Ameri- 
canism" is  not  appreciated  at  the  Vatican;  but  it 
still  flourishes  at  home.  This  American  quality  in 
Roman  Catholicism  is  a  result  of  the  Protestant  influ- 


IDEALS  OF  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY  85 

ences  which  affect  us  all  in  this  part  of  the  world.  In 
the  same  way,  in  Germany,  any  one  who  visits  the 
Roman  Catholic  churches,  for  example  in  the  great 
Roman  Catholic  city  of  Cologne,  cannot  fail  to  notice 
an  evangelical  freshness  in  the  atmosphere  which  does 
not  exist  in  the  churches  of  Spain  or  Italy.  The  reason 
is  that  the  German  Roman  Catholics  have  something 
distinctly  German  about  them,  a  something  traceable 
directly  to  Martin  Luther. 

American  religious  life  may  also  be  expected  to  show 
the  spirit  of  fearless  inquiry  and  criticism.  America 
is  committed  to  modern  ideals  of  education,  to  the 
principles  of  a  scientific  age.  Its  habit  of  mind  is 
inductive;  it  wishes  to  experiment  for  itself,  and 
to  subject  all  canons  of  authority  to  rigorous  tests. 
Together  with  England  and  Germany,  America  is  so 
far  committed  to  the  intellectual  standards  of  modern 
science  and  research,  that  its  religious  life  can  never 
subside  into  blind  submission  to  authority,  much  less 
to  any  process  of  obscurantism.  No  matter  what  its 
source,  Christianity  on  American  soil  must  be  open- 
minded  to  all  new  presentations  of  even  the  oldest 
truths,  and  must  be  thorough-going  in  its  critical 
researches.  It  will  be  first  evangelical,  and  second 
rational;  and  though  it  avoid  excesses  of  fanaticism 
and  sceptical  destructiveness,  it  will  still  show  those 
qualities  which  preeminently  characterized  the  leaders 
of  the  Reformation.  In  Germany,  France,  and  Eng- 
land, Roman  Catholic  scholars  have  higher  standards 
of  learning  and  criticism  than  their  colleagues  in  Italy 
and  Ireland,  because  they  have  felt  the  invigorat- 
ing  uplift  of  the  intellectual  atmosphere  of  northern 


86  IDEALS  OF  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY 

Europe.  Without  ceasing  to  be  Roman  Catholics  they 
have  appropriated  what  came  to  them  from  a  non- 
Roman  Catholic  source.  So  in  American  Christianity 
there  must  be  correspondence  with  the  standards  of 
intelligence  and  education  of  the  country.  Average 
intelligence  may  not  be  high,  average  education,  super- 
ficial; but  the  standards  of  intelligence  and  education 
have  been  placed  as  high  as  the  highest;  and  all  Amer- 
ican Christians  would  agree  that  there  must  be  recog- 
nition of  this  in  the  country's  religious  life. 

American  Christianity  must  also  be  frankly  utili- 
tarian in  its  adaptation  to  modern  needs.  The  Ameri- 
cans pride  themselves  in  being  a  practical  people. 
Possibly  they  lack  sentiment  and  imagination,  and 
may  fail  to  recognize  some  forms  of  utility:  but  the 
desire  for  what  is  practically  useful  is  a  healthy  one. 
In  religion  as  in  all  else  they  wish  to  have  an  elastic 
adaptability.  It  would  never  be  possible  for  them  to 
adopt  the  Eastern  Orthodox  ideal  of  immobility,  a 
sort  of  shuddering  terror  of  anything  more  recent 
than  St.  John  Damascene.  They  need  to  cultivate 
reverence  for  the  achievements  of  the  past  and  the 
faculty  of  learning  from  the  world's  experience;  but 
they  need  not  fear  or  apologize  for  that  aspect  of  the 
practical  wisdom  which  wastes  no  time  in  experiment- 
ing with  what  has  ceased  to  be  useful.  It  is  a  virtue, 
not  a  vice,  to  show  wholesome  impatience  with  the 
obsolete.  American  Christianity  must  certainly  aim 
at  being  practical  and  abreast  of  the  times.  It  can 
never  develop  a  spirit  of  mere  mechanical  subordina- 
tion, and  has  forever  passed  the  stage  in  which  men  can 
ignore  personality  in  the  religious  life.     It  knows  that 


IDEALS  OF  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY  87 

the  Christian  army  is  composed  of  men,  not  machines; 
though  it  needs  reminder  that  soldiers  have  by  exercise 
of  the  highest  personal  qualities  to  learn  to  act  like 
machines,  and  that  they  cannot  all  of  them  be  major- 
generals.  But  in  its  life  there  must  always  be  that 
which  corresponds  to  the  healthy  life  of  a  growing 
organism;  and  it  will  never  be  possible  to  force  Ameri- 
can Christianity  into  moulds  which  plainly  belong  to 
places  and  times  remote.  American  Christians  of 
every  name  would  agree  that  the  Christianity  which 
alone  can  satisfy  the  needs  of  our  people,  and  which 
can  be  trusted  as  having  a  mission  for  the  world,  is 
one  which  displays  in  the  highest  degree  the  freedom 
and  flexibility  which  we  value  as  crowning  products 
of  American  life.  Thus  will  they  maintain  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  Protestant  fathers  by  whom  the  foundations 
of  the  State  were  laid. 


Ill 

These  three  things,  individual  freedom  in  the  faith, 
freedom  for  research  and  discussion  in  religious  educa- 
tion, free  adaptation  of  the  Church  to  new  and  changing 
needs,  represent  a  religious  ideal  for  America,  fostered 
by  its  heritage  from  Protestants,  but  equally  dear  to 
American  Catholics.  In  distinguishing  Catholicism 
and  Protestantism,  it  is  not  implied  that  Protestantism 
has  discovered  any  truth  unknown  to  the  Catholic 
Faith,  nor  that  there  is  irreconcilable  contradiction 
between  the  positive  principles  of  the  two.  The  opposi- 
tions of  the  past  may  give  place  in  future  to  a  harmony 
which  shall  best  preserve  all  for  which  the  contrasted 


88  IDEALS  OF  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY 

types  have  striven.  Yet  for  the  protection  and  develop- 
ment of  that  which  is  peculiarly  dear  to  the  American 
soul,  there  is  need  of  a  breadth  of  apprehension  and 
height  of  aspiration  which  belong  alone  to  the  Catholic 
Faith,  the  religion  for  the  world,  which  has  its  source 
in  Almighty  God.  The  American  religion  of  the 
future  cannot  be  confined  either  in  Greek  cerements 
of  the  sixth  century,  or  in  Italian  trammels  and  trap- 
pings of  the  thirteenth,  or  in  English,  Scottish,  and 
German  moulds  of  the  sixteenth,  or  in  nineteenth- 
century  ruts,  even  though  they  were  formed  in  America. 
It  must  have  what  is  true  and  useful  from  all  sources; 
but  there  must  be  clearer  representation  than  in  any- 
thing we  now  have  of  that  which  can  include  them  all, 
the  Catholic  Church,  which  belongs  to  every  place  and 
time  because  it  belongs  to  eternity.  The  great  prin- 
ciples of  the  mystical  Body  and  Bride  of  Christ  can 
never  be  ignored. 

These  principles  must  be  apprehended  and  adopted 
by  American  Christians,  if  they  are  to  bring  their 
national  honour  and  glory  within  the  gates  of  the  City 
of  God.  They  especially  need  these  principles  for  the 
realization  of  their  own  possibilities.  To  the  nations 
of  northern  Europe  the  Church  was  nurse  in  infancy, 
teacher  during  adolescence,  the  chief  influence  in 
developing  national  possibilities.  In  retrospect  may 
be  seen  how  much  each  of  them  owed  to  the  training 
thus  received.  In  our  own  case  there  is  the  same 
need.  Never  did  a  people  offer  more  obvious  scope 
for  the  educative  and  regulative  influence  of  the 
Catholic  Church,  the  Body  of  Christ  belonging  to  all 
the  world,  which  can  supplement  and  correct  what  is 


IDEALS  OF  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY  89 

merely  transient  and  national.  America  must  appro- 
priate the  faith  and  principles  of  the  Catholic  Church, 
not  only  because  she  must  do  justice  to  the  part 
played  in  national  life  by  citizens  belonging  to  Catholic 
communions,  but  also  for  the  sake  of  counteracting 
tendencies  which  threaten  her  normal  growth  and 
influence. 

American  life,  national  and  religious,  must  show 
social  coherence  and  subordination  as  a  means  of 
unification.  We  start  with  individualism.  We  have 
individualism  and  individuality.  All  our  political 
institutions  represent  political  individualism,  which 
is  democracy.  The  special  danger  of  democracy, 
the  final  consequence  of  unguarded  individualism,  is 
anarchy.  We  have  more  than  our  share  of  that. 
More  and  more  we  need  the  safeguard  of  the  corporate 
principle  in  life  to  correct  one-sided  tendencies;  more 
and  more  we  need  the  philosophy  of  society  and  the 
gospel  of  the  Church  for  the  security  of  highest  indi- 
vidual development.  Much  of  our  life  is  like  the  sky- 
line of  lower  New  York,  made  of  big  things,  high  things, 
useful  things,  all  of  them,  some  of  them  beautiful  things, 
but  huddled  together  without  reference  to  each  other 
by  men  each  of  whom  was  doing  that  which  was  right 
in  his  own  eyes,  but  with  no  regard  for  the  eyes  of  other 
people;  making  a  jumble  of  uneven  tops,  ill-assorted 
frontsides  and  backsides,  which,  though  it  represent 
the  useful  activity  of  a  great  people  and  is  composed 
of  parts  each  good  in  itself,  is  as  a  whole  the  ugliest 
thing  in  the  way  of  skyline  which  any  great  city  can 
show,  and  presents  a  mammoth  muddle  in  place  of 
what  ought  to  be   municipal   magnificence.     It   may 


90  IDEALS  OF  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY 

be  made  admirable  some  day.  The  lower  end  of 
Manhattan  Island  may  sometime  be  as  beautiful  and 
impressive  as  it  is  now  pathetically  amusing:  but  that 
can  only  be  when  the  component  parts  of  its  com- 
mercial stone-piles  have  been  related,  supplemented, 
harmonized  and  unified,  when  this  Protestantism  in 
architecture  has  been  Catholicized.  That  may  be 
done.  It  is  conceivable  that  adjacent  buildings  should 
be  so  related  to  each  other  as  to  form  an  harmonious 
whole,  that  uniformity  of  height  and  a  facing  of  quays 
should  make  the  spectacle  of  the  American  metropolis, 
which  first  faces  the  stranger  brought  to  our  shores, 
a  parable  of  the  united  strength,  wisdom,  and  taste  of 
a  mighty  people,  instead  of  being,  as  it  is  now,  mere 
illustration  of  what  big  things  Americans  can  do,  but 
also  of  what  extraordinarily  queer  and  haphazard  ways 
they  have  of  doing  them.  We  sometimes  do  things 
better  than  this.  The  national  Capital,  actual  and 
prospective,  is  an  illustration.  The  original  plans  for 
the  City  of  Washington,  and  those  recently  adopted 
for  its  beautification,  represent  the  comprehensiveness 
of  view  and  subordination  of  detail  which  our  national 
problems  most  need:  and  this  sort  of  thing  in  the 
religious  sphere  is  given  by  the  conception  of  the 
Catholic  Church.  We  need  the  sense  of  the  King- 
dom of  God  for  the  preservation  of  the  Republic.  All 
that  America  stands  for  can  only  be  guaranteed  by 
that  corporate  sense  which  thinks  of  the  nation  as  a 
whole,  and  rises  from  consciousness  of  the  nation  to 
consciousness  of  the  brotherhood  of  the  race;  and 
this  conception  comes  to  us  chiefly  from  the  Church 
of  Christ.     The  central  thought  of  the  Church's  faith 


IDEALS  OF  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY  91 

is  that  of  the  presence  and  spiritual  activity  of  our 
Lord,  Who  is  not  a  mere  figure,  dear  but  dim,  in  ancient 
history,  but  the  one  great  present  Reality.  If  we  wish 
to  be  abreast  of  the  times,  we  shall  be  filled  with  this 
faith  and  hope.  The  cry  of  the  hour,  as  of  the  ages, 
is  for  fuller  realization  of  the  Living  Christ,  fuller 
appreciation  of  the  life  of  the  Living  Church.  This 
thought  of  eternal  life,  of  present  vigor  and  action, 
makes  an  especial  appeal  to  the  American  zest  for 
realizing  present  opportunities.  This  is  the  very 
heart  of  the  Catholic  Faith,  which  combines  perma- 
nent and  variable,  oldest  truth  with  newest  needs. 

There  are  three  watchwords  to  which  every  Ameri- 
can heart  responds,  Freedom,  Sympathy,  Variety. 
These  things  we  seek  in  our  social  and  national  life; 
these  things  we  wish  in  the  Church.  We  also  speak 
much  of  Unity,  but  perhaps  we  fail  often  to  think 
long  enough,  and  feel  deeply  enough,  to  know  what 
Unity  means.  We  ought  also  to  take  account  of  the 
significance  of  the  New  Testament  word  Fulness.  In 
our  Lord  "dwelleth  all  the  fulness  of  God"  ;  the 
Church  is  "the  fulness  of  Him  that  filleth  all  in  all"  : 
"of  His  fulness  have  we  received,"  and  we  may  "all 
be  filled  with  all  the  fulness  of  God":  the  "fulness  of 
the  nations"  will  come  whenever  teachers  come  "in 
the  fulness  of  the  Gospel."  This  thought  is  puzzling, 
perhaps,  but  it  serves  to  express  the  idea  of  a  compre- 
hensive faith  for  a  composite  people.  This  is  precisely 
what  is  meant  by  the  Catholic  Faith  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  the  faith  in  all  the  harmony  of  its  complete- 
ness for  all  the  nations  of  the  world.  Our  aspirations 
may  be  vague:   but  if  they  be  sincere,  time  may  make 


92  IDEALS  OF  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY 

them  definite  and  explicit.     Who  can  tell  what  answer 
God  may  give  in  response  to  a  nation's  prayer? 


IV 

There  are  limitations  and  unsatisfactorinesses  in  all 
existing  presentations  of  Christianity;  yet  all  express 
partial  truth,  and  by  making  the  most  of  this,  we  shall 
be  guided  further.  Impatient  idealists  may  be  tempted 
to  abandon  a  Church  which  does  not  wholly  satisfy 
them,  possibly  to  try  to  form  a  new  one:  but  such  can 
never  discover  the  One  Church,  nor  find  their  way 
into  it,  by  adding  to  the  number  of  sects.  We  hope 
for  better  things  in  future,  that  the  duty  of  our  grand- 
children in  regard  to  the  Catholic  Church  of  Christ 
may  be  less  perplexing  than  our  own,  that  in  our  own 
country  much  may  be  done  to  further  the  cause  of 
Christian  Unity.  Here  where  we  have  the  whole 
Christian  world  represented  among  our  friends  and 
neighbors,  it  would  seem  possible  that  there  should 
be  that  frankness  of  statement  and  sympathy  of  at- 
tention which  scarcely  ever  fails  to  lead  to  better 
understanding,  to  disclosure  of  unsuspected  agreements 
and  to  lessening  of  differences.  Comparison  of  views 
often  leads  to  discovery  of  unsuspected  allies.  As  has 
been  often  noted,  the  lines  of  separation  between 
Christians  are  now  not  so  much  vertical  as  horizontal. 
The  lines  which  separate  party  from  party  within  a 
Church,  or  body  from  body  within  divided  Christen- 
dom, count  for  less  than  the  plane  which  separates 
those  in  various  bodies  who  are  working  their  way 
toward    more    definite    apprehension    of    Christianity 


IDEALS  OF  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY  93 

from  those  who  are  drifting  away  from  it  altogether. 
Those  moving  in  the  same  direction  are  allies,  since 
separation  in  place  and  difference  in  method  are  com- 
patible with  common  effort  to  attain  the  same  end. 

In  the  bewilderment  in  which  we  find  ourselves  as 
we  think  of  the  confusions  in  the  Christian  world,  it 
is  useful  to  be  reminded  of  certain  practical  duties  in 
regard  to  which  there  can  be  no  doubt.  For  one  thing, 
there  is  always  helpfulness  in  confessions  of  short- 
comings. Penitence  is  the  condition  of  progress;  and 
individuals  and  religious  bodies  can  do  something  by 
full  and  frank  confessions  of  failures.  There  is  always 
helpfulness  also  in  a  longing  for  the  truth.  Any  one 
striving  for  guidance  and  praying  for  light  is  not 
only  in  the  way  of  advance,  but  is  working  effectively 
for  others.  There  is  helpfulness  also  in  content  with 
making  small  contributions  along  right  lines.  The 
special  work  given  us  to  do  may  seem  inconclusive, 
unsatisfactory.  It  may  well  be  both,  and  yet  not 
without  value.  It  may  not  represent  a  fraction  of 
what  ought  to  be  done,  or  of  what  we  wish  to  do:  but 
it  may  be  all  well  enough  as  far  as  it  goes  and  be  swell- 
ing the  grand  total  of  fruitful  effort.  So  long  as  we 
can  be  confident  —  and  of  this  we  may  be  —  that 
what  work  we  do  is  on  some  line  plainly  in  accord  with 
our  Lord's  Will,  whether  we  can  see  or  not  how  it  is 
to  be  fitted  into  the  symmetrical  whole  of  the  work 
of  the  Church,  or  whether  we  can  see  our  coworkers 
in  the  task,  we  may  leave  it  all  with  the  One  Master 
Who  knows  His  servants,  whether  or  not  they  recog- 
nize each  other. 

We  are  here  assembled  in  a  place  dedicated  to  God 


94  IDEALS  OF  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY 

by  the  name  of  one  who  was  as  perfect  an  example  as 
we  know  of  the  faith  and  love  that  comes  from  Christ. 
"The  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved"  certainly  knew,  if 
any  one  ever  knew,  all  that  is  involved  in  personal 
relation  between  the  soul  and  its  Saviour.  No  less 
than  St.  Paul,  St.  John  represents  the  sturdiness  of 
faith,  the  human  side  in  the  process  of  redemption. 
But  he  is  also  the  Divine,  the  Seer,  the  Mystic,  the 
Eagle  gazing  at  the  Sun,  the  one  who  saw  furthest 
into  our  Lord's  eternal  purposes,  who  had  the  vision 
of  all  the  redeemed  in  the  holy  City  of  God.  St.  John's 
teaching  is  the  complete  presentation  of  all  those 
things  which  characterize  Catholic  truth,  as  he  is  him- 
self typical  example  of  the  Catholic  tone  and  temper. 
The  basis  of  his  zeal  was  burning  loyalty  to  our  Lord: 
and  as  the  fiery  temperament  of  the  Son  of  Thunder 
was  mellowed  and  consecrated,  he  became  the  Apostle 
of  Love,  learned  to  show  a  tireless  patience,  and  exhib- 
ited a  breadth  and  delicacy  of  sympathy  akin  to 
that  of  God.  His  name  has  well  been  given  to  this 
place.  It  personifies  an  ideal  and  an  ambition,  that 
here  may  be  a  home  for  all  who  might  be  embraced  in 
the  capacious  love  of  a  St.  John.  He  would  well  under- 
stand how  to  bring  together  all  the  servants  of  the  One 
Lord,  as  those  who  have  built  this  place  would  wish 
to  bring  together  separated  brethren  in  this  country. 
The  name  of  St.  John  also  serves  to  hold  high  before 
the  eyes  of  the  American  people  those  truths  and  those 
standards  which  in  the  bustle  of  a  materialistic  age 
they  are  most  sorely  tempted  to  ignore.  It  stands 
preeminently  for  the  fundamental  truth,  "the  Word  of 
God  was  made  flesh  and  dwelt  among  us,"  and  also 


IDEALS  OF  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY  95 

for  the  further  and  consequent  truth,  revealed  to  St. 
John  in  his  vision,  that  the  Son  of  Man  is  still  to  be 
discerned  in  the  midst  of  the  Churches,  "and  His 
countenance  as  the  sun  shine th  in  his  strength.  And 
when  I  saw  Him,  I  fell  at  His  feet  as  one  dead.  And 
He  laid  His  right  hand  upon  me,  saying  unto  me,  Fear 
not:  I  am  the  first  and  the  last.  I  am  He  that  liveth. 
I  was  dead:  but  now  am  I  alive  forevermore."  "He 
that  hath  an  ear,  let  him  hear  what  the  Spirit  saith 
unto  the  Churches." 


APPENDIX 


APPENDIX 

The  four  papers  following  were  written  as  Parish 
Studies  for  the  first  four  numbers  of  the  Trinity  Parish 
Record  in  1913.  They  are  here  reprinted  by  permis- 
sion of  the  Editor  as  illustrating  in  some  detail  several 
points  touched  upon  in  the  papers  read  before  the 
Cathedral  Conference. 


THE  ONE  CHURCH 

We  all  glibly  recite  Creeds  in  which  we  declare 
belief  in  One  Holy  Catholic  and  Apostolic  Church; 
but  our  conceptions  of  what  this  means  are  often  vague. 
If  actual  beliefs  were  put  into  words,  many  of  us  would 
be  more  likely  to  say:  "I  believe  in  an  Indefinite 
Number  of  Moral  Protestant  Congregational  Churches." 
Morality,  Protestantism,  for  that  matter  Indefinite- 
ness,  have  their  places  in  the  universe;  but  those 
places  are  not  in  Creeds.  They  are  excellent  as  far 
as  they  go;  but  they  do  not  go  far  enough  to  satisfy 
Christian  standards.  Our  common  conceptions  are, 
as  a  rule,  formed  from  below,  and  represent  what  is 
solely  human.  Christian  conceptions,  on  the  other 
hand,  are  all  of  what  comes  from  above  and  deal  invari- 
ably with  the  Divine.  The  Church  is  from  above, 
"the  holy  city,  new  Jerusalem  coming  down  from  God 
out    of   heaven."     Her    Unity,   Sanctity,   Catholicity, 


100  THE  ONE  CHURCH 

and  Apostolicity  are  such  as  descend  to  her  from  her 
Divine  Head.  Men  have  devised  things  which  they 
call  by  these  august  names;  but  the  human  devices 
are  very  different  from,  in  some  cases  contrary  to,  the 
marks  of  the  Church  as  they  are  presented  in  the  teach- 
ing of  our  Lord  and  His  Apostles. 

The  Church  appears  in  human  history  as  a  society, 
an  organized  body  of  men.  It  is  therefore  not  un- 
natural that  we  should  seek  to  make  comparisons  with 
other  societies,  armies,  guilds,  political  parties,  nations, 
and  to  try  to  translate  Church  History  into  terms  of 
ordinary  social  organization.  The  principle  under- 
lying this  is  need  of  cooperation.  "Man  is  a  social 
animal"  ;  and  he  cannot  escape  the  necessity  of  con- 
stant dependence  upon,  and  occasional  cooperation 
with,  other  men.  Men,  therefore,  get  together,  talk 
together,  and  work  together,  the  combination  of  indi- 
viduals involving  certain  restrictions  and  rules,  the  rea- 
sonableness of  which  all  admit,  and  in  the  observance 
of  which  all  agree.  Common  action  is  determined  by 
the  common  mind.  The  plan  of  action  may  be  deter- 
mined by  a  leader;  but  he  is  only  leader  and  spokes- 
man by  common  consent.  In  the  last  analysis  it  is 
the  individual  man  who  has  to  determine  what  shall 
be  done,  not  only  by  himself  but  also  by  his  fellows 
acting  with  him  in  some  common  capacity.  The 
principle  determining  this  social  order  is  that  authority 
is  delegated  from  below,  that  members  of  the  body  exist 
before  the  body  is  formed,  that  the  existence  of  the 
body  depends  upon  voluntary  union  and  corporate 
adaptation  of  its  members. 

The  Church  differs  from  human  societies  of  this  sort 


THE  ONE  CHURCH  101 

in  origin,  aim,  and  fundamental  principles.  It  starts 
not  with  certain  men,  feeling  certain  needs,  and  con- 
senting to  act  in  common,  but  with  the  coming  into 
the  world  of  the  Son  of  God.  Men  did  not  attach 
themselves  to  each  other;  God  attached  them  to  Him- 
self. The  Church's  aim  is  not  mere  cooperation  of 
men  for  some  common  purpose,  but  the  imparting  to 
men  of  a  Divine  principle  of  life.  It  is  not  merely 
an  organization,  a  human  arrangement  for  convenience, 
but  an  organism,  a  creation  of  God  as  instrument  and 
expression  of  life.  It  is  analogous,  as  is  suggested  in 
Scripture,  to  the  family  and  the  vine.  God  created 
Adam  and  Eve  with  power  to  reproduce  their  kind. 
In  Adam  the  race  existed  first;  individual  men  only 
exist  as  the  race  and  race-principle  call  them  into 
being.  Human  nature  has  its  source  in  the  love  of 
God  and  descends  to  its  various  sharers  by  a  line  of 
successive  parents.  So  of  the  vine.  Its  character, 
life,  is  in  its  stock;  this  creates  leaves  and  branches. 
In  both  human  family  and  vegetable  organism  the 
source  of  life  is  from  above,  and  the  law  of  growth 
determined  by  a  principle  working  within  which  is 
undiscoverable  by  natural  science.  So  of  the  Church. 
It  has  its  source  in  the  love  of  God  the  Father,  has  for 
its  Head  God  the  Son,  and  its  life  by  the  indwelling  of 
God  the  Holy  Ghost.  In  origin  and  law  of  life  it  is 
Divine. 

This  explains  the  nature  of  its  Unity.  In  ordinary 
human  societies  unity  means  such  unanimity  of  indi- 
viduals, and  such  union  for  common  action,  as  can  be 
effected  from  below.  Members  unite  to  form  the  body; 
and    the    mind  scattered  throughout  the  belly  as  in 


102  THE  ONE  CHURCH 

some  low  forms  of  insects  determines  movement  of 
the  head.  Union  of  individuals,  cooperation  of 
groups,  federation  of  several  bodies,  depends  upon  the 
continued  union  of  innumerable  wills.  The  only 
unification  is  that  of  units  in  mass,  the  unity  of  a  dust 
heap.  This  has  its  necessities  and  uses,  but  also  obvi- 
ous limitations.  The  Unity  of  the  Church  means  more 
than  this,  though  it  includes  all  that  this  union  means. 
It  involves  unity  of  thought  and  will  in  many  indi- 
viduals, cooperation,  and  federation  of  groups.  It  is 
productive  of  that  will  to  unite,  on  which  human  union 
depends,  and  is  therefore  fitted  to  produce  the  best 
results  of  unity  from  below.  Yet  in  its  source  and 
essential  nature  it  is  a  unity  from  above.  Our  Lord, 
Head  and  King  of  the  Church,  is  Centre  and  Bond  of 
Unity.  As  St.  Paul  suggests,  the  unity  of  the  human 
race  has  its  source  and  centre  in  Adam;  the  unity  of 
the  Jews  has  its  source  and  centre  in  Abraham.  Simi- 
larly, to  the  Church  our  Lord  is  second  Adam,  head 
and  bond  of  a  new  race,  and  also  second  Abraham,  as 
father  of  the  faithful,  who  are  only  united  to  each  other 
through  Him.  This  is  also  taught  by  our  Lord's 
prayer  for  the  unity  of  His  Church;  "that  they  all 
may  be  one;  as  Thou  Father  art  in  Me  and  I  in  Thee, 
that  they  all  may  be  one  in  Us."  The  pattern  as  well 
as  the  source  of  unity  among  Christians  is  the  Unity 
of  God.  The  Church  cannot  create  a  unity;  it  can 
only  receive  it.  Its  separated  parts  can  no  more 
unite  themselves  than  disjointed  limbs  can  come  to- 
gether into  a  body,  or  leaves,  branches,  and  fruits 
combine  to  form  a  vine.  Our  Lord  is  the  one  Head 
"from  Whom  the  whole  Body  is  fitly  joined  together," 


THE  ONE  CHURCH  103 

and  "the  Vine"  of  which  His  people  are  "the  branches." 
Unity  is  only  received  from  Him. 

Plato  in  one  of  his  Dialogues  gives  a  curious  explana- 
tion of  poetic  inspiration.  "The  gift  (of  poetry)  is 
not  an  art  but  an  inspiration;  there  is  a  divinity  mov- 
ing you  like  that  of  the  stone  which  Euripides  calls  a 
magnet.  That  stone  not  only  attracts  iron  rings,  but 
also  imparts  to  them  similar  power  of  attracting  other 
rings;  and  sometimes  you  may  see  a  number  of  pieces 
of  iron  and  rings  suspended  from  one  another  so  as  to 
form  a  long  chain;  and  all  of  them  derive  their  power 
of  suspension  from  the  original  stone.  Even  so  the 
god  sways  the  souls  of  men  and  makes  one  man  depend 
upon  another."  Similarly,  the  "Chief  Corner  Stone" 
of  the  Church  is  a  Magnet;  and  all  the  parts  which 
compose  His  Body  the  Church  only  cohere  through 
Divine  force  derived  from  Him.  Closer  unity  between 
Him  and  individual  members  of  His  Church  alone 
makes  possible  closer  unity  between  separate  members 
with  each  other.  They  cannot  directly  unite,  though 
they  may  be  united  through  Him.  This  theory  taught 
by  our  Lord  Himself  cannot  be  ignored.  The  more  it 
is  meditated  upon,  the  more  congruous  it  is  seen  to  be 
with  ultimate  facts  of  experience.  It  is  a  Divine 
theory;  but  it  is  humanly  practical.  It  is  possible 
to  bring  those  who  have  received  One  Baptism  into 
closer  sacramental  union  with  the  Head  of  the  Church; 
and  by  so  doing  we  help  to  effect  the  unity  of  the 
Body. 

Unity  of  the  Body  follows  from  the  oneness  of  the 
Head.  To  lead  men  to  believe  in  and  to  seek  the 
Unity  of  the  Church  it  is  necessary  first  of  all  to  preach 


104  THE  ONE  CHURCH 

the  "one  Lord."  In  spite  of  theoretical  agreement 
among  those  who  bear  the  Christian  Name  in  recog- 
nition of  one  Lord  as  supreme,  the  state  of  the  Christian 
world  shows  practical  belief  that  Christ  can  be  divided. 
The  divisions  of  the  Corinthian  Church  into  dissentient 
followers  of  Paul,  Apollos,  and  Cephas  were  as  nothing 
compared  to  the  fractions  of  Christendom  today. 
Great  sections  of  the  Christian  world  base  their  reli- 
gious life  on  a  principle  of  separation.  "Lords  many" 
are  made  of  competing  leaders  of  the  Church  and  exal- 
tation of  heads  of  parties  and  sects  has  obscured  the 
claim  of  the  one  Lord  Whom  all  confess.  "Our  un- 
happy divisions"  are  due  to  "not  holding  the  Head, 
from  Whom  all  the  body  by  joints  and  bands  having 
nourishment  ministered  and  knit  together,  increaseth 
with  the  increase  of  God."  Sense  of  the  sin  of  dis- 
union depends  upon  allegiance  to  the  living  Lord,  Who 
is  crucified  by  wounds  and  rents  made  in  His  mystical 
Body,  and  just  so  far  as  burning  devotion  to  the  Per- 
son of  our  Divine  Saviour  is  kindled,  are  Christians 
inflamed  with  a  zeal  for  unity. 

Belief  in  the  one  Lord  carries  much  with  it  by  impli- 
cation. Concentration  of  spiritual  gaze  on  Him  of 
necessity  distracts  from  petty  divisions  among  men  and 
removes  from  the  atmosphere  in  which  division  is 
possible.  Moreover,  living  faith  in  Him  as  Living 
Lord  involves  acceptance  of  the  sacramental  principle. 
He  is  Himself  the  great  Sacrament.  When  the  Word 
Who  was  from  eternity  with  God  and  was  God  was  made 
flesh  and  dwelt  among  us,  the  inward  and  spiritual 
mystery  of  the  universe  was  expressed  and  conveyed 
in  an  outward  sign  visible  and  intelligible  to  men.     To 


THE   HOLY   CHURCH  105 

believe  in  the  Incarnation  is  to  be  prepared  to  believe 
in  the  Church  and  its  extension.  To  believe  in  our 
Lord  as  God  is  to  accept  the  mystical  conception  of 
life  and  the  possible  operation  of  supernatural  grace; 
to  believe  in  Him  as  Man  is  to  acquiesce  in  the  sacra- 
mental possibilities  of  earthly  and  material  things  and 
the  possibility  of  Divine  action  through  human  instru- 
mentality. If  He  is  "of  one  substance  with  the  Father 
as  touching  His  Godhead  and  of  one  substance  with 
us  as  touching  His  Manhood,"  the  Church  united  with 
Him  may  well  minister  heavenly  treasure  in  earthen 
vessels.  Recognition  of  these  applications  of  the 
sacramental  principle  cuts  out  the  root  of  the  chief 
causes  of  divisions;  hence  may  we  have  confidence  in 
every  striving  for  unity  which  bases  itself  on  intenser 
belief  in  our  Lord  as  God  and  Saviour. 


THE  HOLY  CHURCH 

The  Church  derives  her  character  from  Christ  the 
Head,  and  is,  therefore,  a  Holy  Church,  a  Church  whose 
life  consists  in  sharing  the  nature  and  activities  of  God. 
Holiness,  which  expresses  the  being  and  character  of 
God,  is  to  be  contrasted  with  mere  ideals  and  achieve- 
ments of  men.  It  is  more,  for  example,  than  morality, 
more  than  philanthropy,  for  these  are  human  products. 
It  includes  all  the  best  they  stand  for,  but  transcends 
them,  as  being  not  something  laboriously  reared  by 
men  from  below,  but  a  gift  of  God  from  above.  "As 
many  as  received  Him,  to  them  gave  He  power  to 
become  sons  of  God."     The  Church's  aim  is  not  to 


106  THE  HOLY  CHURCH 

produce  but  to  receive.  She  is  content  with  no  ordi- 
nary human  attainments,  not  even  the  highest  moral 
eminence.  She  hungers  and  thirsts  after  the  righteous- 
ness of  God  which  comes  in  response  to  faith,  to  be 
filled  with  all  the  fulness  of  God,  and  herself  to  be 
"the  fulness,"  that  is  complete  embodiment  and  expres- 
sion, "of  Him  that  filleth  all  in  all."  Though  not  yet 
actually  holy  in  all  parts,  since  there  is  admixture  of 
human  error  and  frailty  with  the  holiness  imparted 
from  above,  yet  in  standards,  ideals,  and  in  the  true 
life  which  is  being  gradually  realized,  the  Church  is 
Divine. 

Contrast  with  this  what  is  meant  by  "morality." 
Morality,  by  etymology  "custom,"  is  something  purely 
human.  Men  have  learned  by  experience  that  for 
purposes  of  self-culture  and  for  purposes  of  social 
convenience  certain  customs  are  desirable.  These, 
therefore,  are  enjoined  and  imposed.  Teachers  formu- 
late systems  of  conduct;  and  we  have  codes  of  morals 
from  Hammurabi,  Plato,  Mohammed,  and  Confucius. 
These  represent  as  good  a  science  and  system  of  life 
as  men  by  themselves  can  discover,  and  are  to  be 
received  with  veneration.  They  represent  rules  of 
living  which  tests  of  time  have  proven  useful,  and 
which  men's  deepest  feelings  have  approved.  They 
all  contain  good,  some  of  them  great  good :  those  which 
issue  from  the  experience  of  cultured  and  devout  peoples 
represent  high  planes  of  human  conduct.  But  they 
seldom  rise  higher  than  the  plane  of  possible  achieve- 
ment of  the  average  man.  The  moral  is  essentially 
the  conventional;  and  the  conventional  does  not  raise 
the  highest  standard.     It  tends,  as  matter  of  fact,  to 


THE  HOLY  CHURCH  107 

establish  nothing  more  than  an  average  standard  and 
that  average  comfortably  low.  Men  do  not  care  to 
be  righteous  overmuch:  and  the  moralities  they  devise 
represent,  on  the  whole,  only  very  moderate  require- 
ments of  self-interest  and  wordly  wisdom.  They  are 
good  as  far  as  they  go;  but  they  go  no  farther  than 
they  have  to.  Morality  is  determined  primarily  by 
considerations  of  self-interest;  and  one  consideration 
of  self-interest  is  that  its  requirements  shall  not  be 
too  exacting.  It  is  concerned  primarily,  like  that  old 
worldling  Polonius  in  his  most  solemn  injunctions, 
with  looking  out  for  Number  1,  "This  above  all,  to 
thine  own  self  be  true;  and  it  must  follow  as  the  night 
the  day,  thou  canst  not  then  be  false  to  any  man." 
This  is  specious  morality,  unctuous,  pious;  but  it  falls 
comfortably  short  of  anything  like  holiness  and  self- 
sacrifice. 

Philanthropy  might  be  expected  to  go  beyond 
morality,  since  it  is  concerned  primarily  with  fellow- 
men.  But  its  standards  are  not  usually  higher  than 
those  of  average  morality,  since  a  man  is  not  likely 
to  seek  for  his  neighbor  what  he  does  not  care  in 
the  first  instance  to  gain  for  himself.  Philanthropic 
standards  are  derived  from  moral  standards  as  from  a 
stream  which  cannot  rise  higher  than  its  source.  Hence 
when  the  aims  of  self-development  are  physical  ease 
and  such  culture  as  conduces  to  gain  or  pleasure, 
brotherly  kindness  will  take  the  form  of  sharing  bodily 
comforts  and  of  surrounding  ourselves  with  those  whose 
gay  enjoyment  of  the  world  reflects  the  spirit  which 
we  ourselves  wish  to  possess.  We  will  relieve  physical 
distress  to  be  rid  of  the  sight  of  it,  provide  sumptuous 


108  THE  HOLY  CHURCH 

Christmas  dinners  for  the  poor,  and  endow  free  beds 
whereon  they  may  recover  from  the  effects  of  them. 
Methods  of  philanthropy  may  become  more  and  more 
scientific,  sane,  and  sanitary;  but  they  will  not  rise  to 
a  high  plane  so  long  as  food,  money,  and  the  theatre 
represent  the  ideal  of  success  and  happiness.  Many 
schemes  of  philanthropy  aim  at  much  more  than  this; 
but  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  philanthropic  motive 
by  itself  can  induce  a  man  to  do  more  than  share  with 
a  few,  such  good  things  as  he  has  sought  and  to  some 
degree  gained  for  himself.  Philanthropy  certainly  does 
good  to  him  that  gives,  usually  also  to  him  that 
takes;  it  is  excellent  as  far  as  it  goes:  but  it  does  not 
often  go  far  enough. 

"The  pre-Christian  religions  were  an  age-long 
prayer:  the  Incarnation  is  the  answer."  Similarly, 
man's  moralities,  voicing  aspirations  of  mind  and 
conscience,  and  his  philanthropies,  expressing  altruistic 
instincts,  represent  irrepressible  human  desires  to  make 
the  best  of  self  and  to  help  fellowmen;  they  exhibit 
the  best  of  human  life  as  devised  and  developed  from 
below.  But  it  is  the  life  of  Christ  alone,  the  exhibition 
of  human  life  as  designed  and  viewed  from  above, 
which  shows  a  humanity  that  men  recognize  as  really 
satisfying  the  instinctive  longing  after  higher  things 
which  are  innate  in  humanity.  In  our  Lord  ideal  man 
is  exhibited  to  himself.  The  difference  between  the 
best  that  humanity  can  make  of  itself  and  the  glory 
of  the  Word  made  flesh,  full  of  grace  and  truth,  shows 
that  the  supreme  morality  and  philanthropy  are  not 
self-evolved.  The  knowledge  of  them  comes  by  reve- 
lation;   the  things  themselves  come  by  gift  of  God. 


THE  HOLY  CHURCH  109 

Both  morality  and  philanthropy  are  raised  to  highest 
terms  and  guaranteed  by  the  Divine  holiness  and  self- 
sacrifice.  Self-culture  and  neighborly  kindness  are 
best  secured  on  the  basis  of  love  to  God;  and  in  the 
light  of  revelation  the  best  that  man  can  achieve  in 
independence  of  God  is  poles  asunder  from  the  righteous- 
ness which  God  gives.  When  St.  Paul  characterizes  the 
law  and  the  righteousness  which  is  by  the  law  as  "sin," 
he  is  only  emphasizing  the  contrast  between  what  is 
merely  human  and  what  is  Divine.  But  what  man 
cannot  develop  out  of  himself,  he  may  receive  by  com- 
munication from  God.  Our  Lord  is  "the  Lamb  of  God 
Who  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world"  ;  and  He  is 
"second  Adam"  Who  begets  a  race  of  redeemed 
humanity. 

From  Him  we  receive  more  than  teaching.  God, 
Who  never  left  Himself  without  witness,  but  in  every 
race  and  time  inspired  sages  and  philosophers  to  teach 
men  wisdom  and  kindness,  in  the  fulness  of  time  sent 
His  Son  to  reveal  both  Divine  and  human  nature 
through  intelligible  terms  of  human  life. 

"Tho'  truths  in  manhood  darkly  join, 
Deep-seated  in  our  mystic  frame, 
We  yield  all  blessing  to  the  Name 
Of  Him  who  made  them  current  coin. 

"For  Wisdom  dwelt  with  mortal  powers, 
Where  truth  in  closest  words  shall  fail, 
When  truth  embodied  in  a  tale 
Shall  enter  in  at  lowly  doors. 

"And  so  the  Word  had  breath  and  wrought 
With  human  hands  the  creed  of  creeds 
In  loveliness  of  perfect  deeds 
More  strong  than  all  poetic  thought." 


110  THE  HOLY  CHURCH 

By  our  Lord  came  truth,  revelation  about  God,  about 
man,  about  life.  But  by  Him  also  came  grace,  gift  of 
power  to  realize  human  possibilities  which  by  nature 
man  cannot  have.  He  is  more  than  Example:  He  is 
Source  of  human  perfection.  In  teaching  this,  Chris- 
tianity runs  counter  to  our  first  impressions  and  to 
popular  teaching.  We  start  with  conviction  that  we 
are  able  to  work  out  our  own  salvation,  that  with  half 
a  chance  we  can  develop  our  powers,  that  we  can  by 
searching  find  out  ourselves,  and,  so  far  as  we  need 
Him,  God.  Christianity  denies  this.  Our  own  search- 
ings  can  find  many  things;  but  the  sum  of  discovery 
is  that  we  are  not  self-sufficient.  To  be  without  God 
in  the  world  is  to  be  without  hope.  Our  Lord  showed 
this  by  displaying  a  type  of  humanity  which  embodies 
more  than  moral  respectabilities,  more  than  philan- 
thropical  sentimentalities,  and  reveals  an  all-pervading 
love  capable  of  supreme  self-sacrifice  and  finding  glory 
and  power  in  pain.  On  the  Cross  He  exhibited  the 
holiness  of  God  in  its  opposition  to  the  spirit  of  the 
world,  and  also  the  holiness  of  man  in  its  acceptance  of 
the  price  of  obedience.  Yet  the  revelation  of  God's 
searching  requirements  would  be  terrible,  were  it  not 
that  our  Lord  not  only  shows  what  man  ought  to  do 
but  also  gives  power  to  do  it.  He  requires  holiness; 
but  He  gives  this  by  the  indwelling  of  His  Holy  Spirit. 
"The  mystery  of  godliness"  follows  from  the  mystical 
union  of  Christ  with  the  members  of  His  Body,  the 
Church. 

The  Church  is  the  Home  of  Holiness.  Those  who 
as  members  of  Christ  are  sacramentally  united  with 
Him  are  infused  by  spiritual  forces.     Men  may  become 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH  111 

"partakers  of  the  Divine  Nature"  as  the  Son  Him- 
self derives  His  being  from  the  Father  as  Source  of 
Godhead.  "As  the  living  Father  hath  sent  Me,  and 
I  live  by  the  Father:  so  he  that  eateth  Me,  even  he 
shall  live  by  Me."  Life  sacramentally  generated  has 
as  fruits  not  only  decencies  of  morality  and  the  easy 
good-nature  of  philanthropy,  but  also  such  love  and  joy 
and  peace  as  only  the  Spirit  of  God  can  give.  "He 
was  made  human  that  we  might  be  made  Divine," 
wrote  St.  Leo:  and  St.  John  gives  the  gist  of  Christian 
Ethics  when  he  says,  "Herein  is  love,  not  that  we 
loved  God,  but  that  He  loved  us  and  sent  His  Son  to 
be  the  propitiation  for  our  sins.  .  .  .  God  is  love: 
and  he  that  dwelleth  in  love  dwelleth  in  God  and  God 
in  him." 

THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH 

The  Church  of  God  is  intended  for  all  mankind. 
"God  willeth  all  men  to  be  saved;  and  the  only  limits 
to  the  inclusiveness  of  the  Church,  which  is  the  instru- 
ment of  salvation,  are  those  imposed  by  the  wills  of 
men  who  refuse  to  accept  the  grace  proffered  them." 
"  God  so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His  only-begotten 
Son."  This  universalism  of  Christianity  disappointed 
the  expectation  of  the  Jews  who  believed  that  their 
race  had  a  monopoly  of  God's  favor;  and  it  contra- 
dicts all  theories  of  God's  working  which  would  restrict 
His  grace  to  narrow  channels,  or  deny  possibility  of 
salvation  to  any  race  or  class  of  men.  The  possible 
scope  of  the  Church's  influence  is  as  wide  as  humanity. 

This  conception  of  a  Catholic,  Universal,  Church  is 


112  THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH 

opposed  to  that  of  all  ancient  religions.  These  were 
cults  of  families,  tribes,  and  nations,  and  were  restricted 
to  men  of  one  blood.  A  few  Greeks  dimly  dreamed  of 
one  all-supreme  God  Who  had  made  of  one  blood  all 
peoples  of  the  earth;  but  commonly  men's  sympathies 
did  not  range  beyond  the  confines  of  their  own  special 
class  or  nation.  Religious  rites  and  beliefs  were  the 
exclusive  and  distinguishing  possession  of  special  classes 
of  men.  Religion  was  commonly  thought  of  as  a 
family,  or  at  most  a  national,  possession.  Among  no 
people  was  the  idea  of  religious  exclusiveness  more 
strongly  held  than  among  the  Jews.  They  were  the 
"chosen  people, "  the  "elect  nation."  Their  whole 
religious  history  had  impressed  on  them  the  necessary 
duty  of  aloofness  from  the  rest  of  the  world.  They 
were  taught  the  special  obligations  of  God's  service 
by  being  kept  apart  from  idolatrous  nations  round 
about  them  on  the  principle  implied  in  our  Lord's 
warning  to  His  followers,  "Ye  are  not  of  the  world, 
even  as  I  am  not  of  the  world."  Exclusiveness  for 
the  sake  of  concentration,  narrowness  for  the  sake  of 
depth,  had  to  be  insisted  on:  but  it  was  a  means,  not 
an  end.  The  Jews  treated  their  position  as  one  not  of 
responsibility  but  of  privilege,  not  of  obligation  but  of 
exemption.  They  knew  that  God's  special  promises 
had  been  given  to  Abraham,  that  "salvation  was  of 
the  Jews";  and  they  could  not  conceive  that  the 
religion  of  Almighty  God  could  be  other  than  Jewish 
in  form.  They  were  perfectly  willing  to  receive  prose- 
lytes of  the  gate;  but  the  religion  of  Jehovah  was, 
they  believed,  only  for  Jews  and  Jew-Gentiles.  Though 
they  believed  their  God  to  be  without  peer,  "There 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH  113 

is  none  like  Thee  among  the  gods,"  and  came  to  think 
of  Him  as  Lord  of  the  whole  earth,  yet  their  conceptions 
of  national  religions  and  national  gods  did  not  differ 
essentially  from  that  of  other  peoples.  In  spite  of 
conviction  that  Jehovah  was  Creator  of  heaven  and 
earth,  they  reasoned  that  His  choice  of  the  Jews  as 
recipients  of  a  progressive  revelation  of  Divine  truth 
virtually  restricted  His  grace  to  Jewish  channels. 
They  regarded  themselves  not  as  trustees  of  spiritual 
blessings  for  all  mankind,  but  as  irresponsible  favorites. 
They  had  to  be  taught  both  their  own  duty  and  the 
comprehensiveness  of  God's  love  and  purposes. 

The  first  Christians,  devout  Jews  by  birth  and 
training,  did  not  at  once  rise  to  higher  conceptions. 
They  regarded  themselves  as  the  elect  remnant,  the 
true  Israel  of  God,  the  heirs  of  the  promises  made  to 
Abraham;  but,  even  with  the  knowledge  that  the 
Messiah  was  a  heavenly  rather  than  an  earthly  King, 
they  did  not  at  once  see  that  men  might  be  brought  to 
Christ  by  other  than  Judaizing  processes.  Though  to 
them  religion  was  more  than  family  custom,  more 
even  than  a  national  cult,  since  they  were  familiar  with 
the  idea  of  international  adoption,  yet  at  first  they 
thought  only  of  the  extension  of  Christianity  by  strictly 
Jewish  methods  of  inclusion.  The  Church,  the  Ecclesia, 
was  the  body  called  out;  and  this  exclusiveness,  neces- 
sary as  a  means  of  instruction,  was  regarded  as  an 
essential  aspect  of  the  body  of  the  redeemed.  It  was 
St.  Paul  who  first  learned  and  then  taught  the  truth 
that  the  Church  is  an  Universal  Church  in  which 
Gentiles  are  fellow-heirs  of  God's  promises  side  by  side 
with  Jews.  The  Church's  mission  is  to  all  mankind; 
8 


114  THE  CATHOLIC   CHURCH 

its  sympathies  must  be  as  wide  as  humanity,  its  methods 
as  varied  as  the  needs  of  men,  its  characteristics  as 
manifold  as  those  of  the  nations  of  the  earth.  Our 
Lord  was  the  Jewish  Messiah;  but  He  was  also  the 
Catholic  Man,  the  Second  Adam,  the  embodiment  of 
ideal  humanity.  So  the  Church,  His  Body,  is  the 
Catholic  Society,  the  household  and  family  not  of 
Abraham  but  of  God,  not  only  "the  general  assembly 
and  church  of  the  first-born,"  but  also  of  all  "spirits 
of  just  men  made  perfect."  It  was,  in  the  first  instance, 
as  against  belief  in  one  Jewish,  one  national,  Church, 
that  Christians  professed  belief  in  one  Catholic  Church. 
The  profession  of  that  belief  still  serves  to  oppose  any 
restriction  of  the  Church-idea  to  a  special  class  or 
nation  by  confronting  the  narrowness  of  men  with  the 
all-embracing  love  of  God. 

In  modern  times  has  arisen  another  antithesis.  The 
Catholic  Church  is  contrasted  with  the  Protestant 
Churches.  The  contrast  marks  the  distinction  be- 
tween the  religion  of  the  Incarnate  Word  intended  for 
all  mankind  and  the  select  views  of  certain  sets  of  people 
who  have  become  conscious  of  disagreement  with  some- 
body else.  The  essence  of  Catholicism  is  the  thought 
of  the  human  race  considered  in  relation  to  God;  the 
essence  of  Protestantism  is  the  thought  of  one's  own 
private  judgment  as  distinguished  from  the  private 
judgment  of  one's  immediate  neighbors.  Private  judg- 
ment is  a  fact;  it  has  its  place  and  function  in  the 
Christian  scheme  of  redemption;  but  it  is  no  substitute 
for  the  revelation  of  the  new  creation  which  comes 
through  Jesus  Christ.  Protestantism  is  essentially 
individualistic,  and  serves  a  useful  purpose  in  so  far 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH  115 

as  it  insists  on  individual  responsibility,  individual 
access  to  God,  and  the  personal  relation  between  each 
soul  and  its  Personal  Saviour.  But  it  errs  when  it 
confines  religion  to  the  individual  consciousness  and 
tends  to  restrict  religious  conceptions  to  the  devices 
of  individual  mind  and  feeling.  It  rightly  insists  on 
the  human  function  in  the  process  of  salvation,  on  the 
necessity  of  the  response  of  faith :  but  it  too  often  trusts 
to  its  own  initiative  and  subjects  itself  to  its  own  in- 
ventions. It  is  concerned  with  the  lower,  earthly  side  of 
things,  and  tends  to  determine  everything  from  below. 
The  Catholic  Church,  like  the  conception  of  the 
Catholic  Church,  cometh  down  from  above.  It  means 
more  than  that,  as  the  individual  must  broaden  his 
thought  to  include  the  family,  so  the  family  conception 
must  broaden  to  the  national,  and  the  national  to  the 
international,  tending  to  sense  of  kinship  with  all 
mankind.  Man  by  thinking  and  feeling  may  stretch 
himself  over  a  large  surface;  but  his  self -evolved 
breadth  is  necessarily  thin.  Catholicity  means  more 
than  imaginative  breadth  of  human  sympathy.  It 
means  that  conception  of  humanity  and  of  the  whole 
creation  which  comes  from  thinking  first  of  God. 
From  God,  Who  filleth  all  in  all,  all  things  in  the  world 
in  all  conceivable  ways,  comes  that  Church  which  is 
the  fulness,  the  complete  expression,  of  its  Divine 
Head.  It  is  from  Him  that  men  gain  true  breadth  of 
view  and  depth  of  sympathy  whereby  to  realize  their 
universal  kinship.  As  love  of  God  lies  at  the  root  of 
true  love  for  self  and  love  for  neighbor,  so  the  con- 
ception of  God's  nature  and  purposes  lies  at  the  base 
of  world-wide  conceptions  of  humanity  and  rounded 


116  THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH 

conceptions  of  human  destiny.  Breadth  of  sympathy 
for  all  humanity  depends  on  height  of  aspiration  to- 
wards God.  Only  as  by  degrees  we  come  to  possess 
"the  mind  of  Christ"  do  we  learn  the  secret  of  uni- 
versal love.  Only  as  we  fathom  the  depths  of  Divine 
love,  do  we  learn  that  the  limits  of  the  Catholic  Church 
are  those  of  Divine  inclusiveness. 

There  are  many  caricatures  of  Catholicity.  There  is 
the  theory  of  acquiescence  in  rules  for  the  Church 
devised  by  an  Italian  oligarchy,  pax  Romana,  uni- 
formity of  outward  observance;  there  is  the  assumed 
indifference  to  divisions  between  Protestants  which 
would  produce  civility  at  the  expense  of  sincerity, 
unanimity  in  the  avoidance  of  burning  questions; 
there  is  the  harking  back  to  past  ages  and  irrevocable 
conditions  on  the  theory  that  we  can  let  some  bygones 
be  bygones,  if  we  take  other  bygones  as  beginnings; 
there  is  enthusiastic  applause  of  all  novel  doctrines, 
especially  such  as  contradict  the  fundamental  articles 
of  the  Christian  faith;  there  is  habitual  disparagement 
of  strictly  conscientious  persons,  a  sentimental  devotion 
to  criminals,  an  emphasis  on  the  virtues  of  vice,  and  a 
passionate  demand  for  belief  in  the  salvation  of  the 
dear  old  Devil,  universalism :  all  of  which  call  them- 
selves "Catholicity."  But  these  are  not  ideas  of  St. 
Paul  and  St.  John,  nor  have  they  sanction  in  the  teach- 
ing of  our  Lord! 

The  Catholic  Church,  as  distinct  from  individual, 
congregational,  local,  national  religious  cults,  and  as 
transcending  the  noblest  human  efforts  to  realize 
universal  brotherhood,  is  the  mystical  Body  of  Christ, 
whose  whole  life  is  sacramental,  whose  extension  is  by 


THE  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH  117 

sprinkling  of  One  Baptism,  which  includes  all  who  do 
not  wilfully  refuse  the  invitation  of  Divine  Love. 
"Whosoever  will,  let  him  come."  "One  touch  of 
nature  makes  the  whole  world  kin,"  and  one  touch  of 
grace  makes  that  whole  kin  one.  As  souls  are  touched 
with  sense  of  sin  and  surrender  themselves  to  the 
saving  sacraments  of  the  one  Saviour,  they  are  included 
in  that  body  of  the  redeemed  and  make  contribution 
to  the  character  of  that  body  from  which  nothing 
human  is  alien.  There  is  need  of  form,  organization, 
lower  activities;  but  the  true  character  of  Church- 
membership  is  not  realized  without  that  sacramental 
conception  of  the  Church  and  of  life  which  relates  the 
admission  into  earthly  fellowship  to  the  writing  of 
names  in  the  Lamb's  Book  of  Life. 


THE  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH 

The  Church  which  is  One,  because  it  consists  of 
those  who  are  united  to  One  Lord  Who  is  Divine; 
which  is  Holy,  because  it  shares  the  Divine  life;  which 
is  Catholic,  because  it  is  inspired  by  Divine  love  and 
compassion  for  all  humanity;  this  Church,  Divine  in 
its  Head  and  Centre,  in  its  character,  and  in  its  motive 
and  scope,  is  also  Divine  in  its  work  and  in  its  authority. 
It  is  Apostolic,  that  is,  sent  and  commissioned  by  God, 
for  the  purpose  of  continuing  "all  that  Jesus  began 
both  to  do  and  to  teach." 

It  is  natural  to  assume  that  a  Church  of  this  mystical 
character  would  have  received  a  solemn  commission 
in  the  Name  of  God;  and  according  to  the  Gospel 
narratives  such  a  commission  was  given.     Our  Lord 


118  THE  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH 

spoke  of  Himself  as  the  embodiment  of  authority. 
"All  power  is  given  unto  Me  in  heaven  and  in  earth." 
Then  followed  His  commission  to  the  Church,  "Go  ye 
therefore,  and  teach  all  nations,  baptizing  them  into 
the  Name  of  the  Father  and  of  the  Son  and  of  the 
Holy  Ghost;  and  lo,  I  am  with  you  always  even  unto 
the  end  of  the  world."  In  these  words  are  implied 
two  things,  our  Lord's  mission  of  the  Church,  and  His 
perpetual  presence  in  the  Church,  both  involving  the 
idea  of  authority  delegated  by  God.  In  His  earthly 
ministry  He  inaugurated  a  double  work  of  revelation 
and  redemption,  of  teaching  men  about  God  and  of 
saving  them  from  sin;  and  this  work  He  continues, 
working  by  His  Spirit  through  His  mystical  Body  the 
Church.  Reigning  as  King  in  heaven  He  discharges 
functions  of  Prophet  and  Priest;  and  in  His  Name  the 
Church  exercises  royal  authority  for  the  purpose  of 
mediating  grace  and  truth.  The  Church  has  to  teach 
and  to  baptize,  to  discharge  a  ministry  of  Word  and 
Sacrament,  ruling  minds  for  the  sake  of  illuminating 
them  and  souls  for  the  sake  of  sanctifying  them.  There 
can  be  neither  teaching  nor  training  without  exercise 
of  authority;  and  to  justify  this  it  is  necessary  that 
there  be  guarantee  of  commission  from  God  both  to 
those  who  wish  to  receive  grace  and  truth  from  Christ 
and  to  those  who  wish  to  work  in  Christ's  Name.  No 
man  could  assume  right  to  speak  and  act  for  God, 
though  he  may  humbly  try  to  discharge  such  a  respon- 
sibility, if  without  assumption  of  his  own  it  be  laid 
upon  him.  This  is  the  principle  which  underlies  the 
Church's  belief  in  an  Apostolic  Ministry.  Given  belief 
in  the  continuous  activity  of  our  Lord,  now  as  formerly 


THE  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH  119 

reaching  men  through  the  instrumentality  of  other 
men,  it  is  possible  to  believe  in  a  Divinely  commissioned 
ministry  of  "ambassadors  of  Christ  and  stewards  of 
the  mysteries  of  God."  Perpetual  commission  from 
Christ  and  perpetual  inspiration  by  Christ  are  credible 
to  those  who  believe  in  the  perpetual  work  of  Christ 
supernaturally  present  in  His  Church.  Belief  in  the 
delegation  of  Divine  authority  to  the  Church  and  its 
Ministry  has  not  been  due  to  the  inventive  imagina- 
tion of  Christians  of  later  days,  but  to  the  express  words 
and  promises  of  our  Lord  Himself,  "Receive  ye  the 
Holy  Ghost;  whosesoever  sins  ye  remit,  they  are 
remitted  unto  them;  and  whosesoever  sins  ye  retain, 
they  are  retained."  This  signifies  Divine  mission  for 
share  in  a  Divine  work  of  redemption,  the  Divine  work 
requiring  a  Divine  commission  quite  as  truly  as  the 
Divine  commission  implies  a  Divine  work. 

The  principle  of  authority  in  the  Church  is  opposed 
by  all  forms  of  individualism.  Individualism  recog- 
nizes no  authority  except  such  as  is  self-evolved,  being 
democratic  because  democracy  seems  to  be  an  exten- 
sion of  autocracy,  and  sometimes  theocratic  for  the 
same  reason.  Vox  Populi  is  the  same  as  Vox  Dei, 
because  Vox  Mei  is  assumed  as  a  middle  term.  "I 
am  one  of  the  people;  therefore  the  voice  of  the  people 
is  my  voice;  and  this  being  the  case,  I  recognize  the 
voice  of  the  people  as  the  Voice  of  God.  If  the  Voice 
of  God  expresses  my  opinions,  I  bow  to  It  as  infallible." 
But  if  the  individual  mind  and  will  be  independent  and 
supreme,  there  are  as  many  independent  supremacies 
as  individuals.  Pure  individualism,  irrational  in  its 
assumptions,  is  also,  therefore,  anarchic  in  its  results. 


120  THE  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH 

Individualism  lies  at  the  heart  of  the  Protestant 
creed,  "I  disbelieve  in  the  religion  of  everybody  else." 
Since  this  denies  external  authority  and  suspects  con- 
ceptions which  transcend  its  intelligence,  its  church- 
government  naturally  takes  the  form  of  domination 
from  below.  During  the  Middle  Ages  there  developed 
in  the  Western  Church  an  idea  of  clerical  caste  and  a 
clerical  tyranny  which  called  for  reform  even  by  revo- 
lutionary methods.  The  tyranny  was  intolerable; 
and  there  was  need  of  insisting  that  in  all  that  concerns 
the  Church  there  must  be  cooperation  of  the  laity, 
since  the  clergy  only  discharge  representative  functions 
for  the  body  of  the  Church  as  a  whole.  But  in  the 
reaction  of  the  sixteenth  century  there  was  often, 
instead  of  reform  of  authority  misused,  a  defiance  of 
all  authority  and  the  overthrow  of  much  that  promoted 
the  welfare  of  the  Church.  Reaction  from  clerical 
tyranny  often  established  lay-tyranny,  less  defensible 
in  theory  and  more  disastrous  in  fact.  s  Abuse  of 
authority  by  some  of  the  men  who  have  been  trained 
and  commissioned  for  its  exercise  is  not  remedied  by 
assuming  that  authority  can  only  be  safely  entrusted 
to  those  who  have  had  no  such  training  and  no  such 
commission.  Yet  this  anomaly  has  frequently  been 
illustrated  by  developments  in  modern  times.  Revolt 
against  misused  authority  in  the  Church  has  often 
involved  not  only  defiance  of  false  priests  and  false 
prophets  but  also  virtual  rejection  of  the  authority 
of  our  Lord  Himself.  The  revolt  against  authority 
has  been  general.  Private  judgment  has  in  all  spheres 
arrogated  to  itself  an  impossible  supremacy.  In  schools 
it   often   seeks   to   subject  teachers   and   curricula  to 


THE  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH  121 

pupils,  in  politics  legislators  to  the  least  fit  of  voters, 
in  courts  judges  to  the  most  vacant-minded  juries,  in 
homes  parents  to  their  spoiled  children. 

"  Tumble  Nature  heel  o'er  head,  and  yelling  with  the  yelling  street, 
Set  the  feet  above  the  brain  and  swear  the  brain  is  in  the  feet." 

Freedom  has  been  caricatured  by  the  license  of  self- 
will  and  ignorance.  Not  only  has  there  been  suspicion 
of  any  claim  to  rule  in  God's  Name,  but  also  scant 
regard  for  the  authority  of  God  Himself. 

Against  this  principle  of  anarchy  the  Catholic  Church 
maintains  the  principle  of  freedom  through  obedience. 
It  views  all  life  as  corporate  and  organic.  It  is  con- 
scious of  the  living  Christ  and  of  man's  constant  need 
of  grace.  This  consciousness  leads  to  belief  in  the 
working  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  a  Church  not  man-devised 
but  God-ordered;  and  the  acceptance  of  this  principle, 
Apostolicity,  is  but  acceptance  of  what  is  involved  in 
our  Lord's  assertion,  "As  My  Father  hath  sent  Me, 
even  so  send  I  you."  The  Apostolic  Church,  sent  by 
God  and  inspired  by  God  to  continue  the  redeeming 
and  sanctifying  work  of  His  Son  and  Spirit,  can  only 
be  defined  in  terms  of  the  Divine  Nature;  and  its 
methods  of  working  are  also  Divine.  The  kingdom  of 
God  cometh  from  above.  It  is  radically  wrong  to  try 
to  reduce  it  to  terms  of  mere  human  nature  and  secular 
politics  and  to  identify  it  with  efforts  at  self-govern- 
ment such  as  we  make  in  secular  affairs.  If  this  be 
done,  it  ceases  to  be  Church,  Ecclesia,  the  body  of 
those  "called  out"  from  the  world  to  be  in  closer  touch 
with  God.  A  distinguished  teacher  has  said  that  every 
church-spire  represents  a  mark  of  interrogation,   the 


122  THE  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH 

irrepressible  inquiry  of  man  concerning  the  Being  and 
nature  of  God.  In  a  sense  this  is  true.  On  the  human 
side,  the  Church  represents  humanity  by  a  law  of  its 
being  struggling  upward  toward  light.  But  in  another 
and  more  important  sense  church-spires  stand,  or  ought 
to  stand,  for  affirmation,  not  so  much  for  the  fact  of 
man's  queries  as  for  the  definite  answer  God  has  given 
to  them.  "Not  that  we  loved  God,  but  that  He  loved 
us,  and  sent  His  Son  to  be  the  propitiation  of  our  sins." 
"We  love  Him,  because  He  first  loved  us."  The 
conception  of  the  interrogatory  character  of  the  Church 
unrelated  to  its  affirmative  character  cannot  be  re- 
garded as  entirely  Christian. 

"And  one  of  the  angels  talked  with  me,  saying,  Come 
hither  and  I  will  show  thee  the  Bride,  the  Lamb's  Wife. 
And  he  carried  me  away  in  the  spirit  to  a  great  and 
high  mountain,  and  shewed  me  that  great  city,  the 
holy  Jerusalem,  descending  out  of  heaven  from  God, 
having  the  glory  of  God;  and  her  light  was  like  unto 
a  stone  most  precious,  even  like  a  jasper-stone,  clear 
as  crystal;  and  had  a  wall  great  and  high,  and  had 
twelve  gates,  and  at  the  gates  twelve  angels,  and  names 
written  thereon,  which  are  the  names  of  the  twelve 
tribes  of  Israel:  on  the  east  three  gates;  on  the  north 
three  gates;  on  the  south  three  gates;  on  the  west 
three  gates.  And  the  wall  of  the  city  had  twelve 
foundations,  and  in  them  the  names  of  the  twelve 
apostles  of  the  Lamb." 

There  is  a  vision  of  the  Church's  ideal.  It  is  One, 
unique,  and  incomparable  as  coming  from  God;  it  is 
Holy,  "having  the  glory  of  God,"  the  light,  purity,  and 


THE  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH  123 

strength  of  the  most  precious  crystals;  it  is  Catholic, 
having  gates  on  every  side  affording  easy  access  to 
those  who  approach  God  from  every  quarter;  it  is 
Apostolic,  having  as  foundations  the  faith  of  those 
who  believing  in  Jesus  as  Son  of  God  were  sent  forth 
to  win  the  world  in  His  Name. 

It  cannot  be  maintained  that  the  ideal  is,  or  ever 
has  been,  even  approximately  realized  in  any  fraction 
of  the  Christian  world.  But  now,  as  in  all  ages  of  the 
Church's  history,  there  are  many  holy  souls  who  are 
seeking  more  and  more  the  reality  of  the  Divine  Church, 
because  they  believe  in  the  Divine  Saviour.  The  two 
beliefs  stand  or  fall  together.  Those  who  have  rejected 
the  idea  of  the  Church  as  anything  more  than  human 
organization  have  also  rejected,  or  are  plainly  in  way 
of  rejecting,  the  conception  of  Jesus  as  more  than 
human  teacher.  On  the  other  hand,  those  who  have 
believed,  and  do  believe,  in  our  Lord  as  "very  God  of 
very  God,  being  of  one  substance  with  the  Father" 
are  able  to  conceive  of  His  Divine  activity  among  and 
through  men,  though  "we  have  this  treasure  in  earthen 
vessels."  "Whom  say  ye  that  I  am?  And  Simon 
Peter  answered  and  said,  Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  son 
of  the  Living  God.  And  Jesus  answered  and  said 
unto  him,  Blessed  art  thou,  Simon  bar-Jona:  for  flesh 
and  blood  hath  not  revealed  it  unto  thee,  but  My 
Father  which  is  in  heaven.  And  I  say  also  unto  thee, 
that  thou  art  Peter  —  Man  of  Rock  —  and  upon  this 
rock  —  of  faith  like  thine  —  I  will  build  My  Church; 
and  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  it." 


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